Save yourself 65 bucks.
First off disregard every review you have read from sites such as these . I've been playing Madden for many years, I'm 34 and have played just about every version since the SNES and Genesis days. That being said I'm also of the camp that believes that sim football should be represented more then over the top arcade gameplay especially when dealing with the NFL license. Well if you feel the same as I do then avoid this game like the plague. While there have been improvements such as crisper better visuals and a improved running game this cannot gloss over glaring issues which make this Madden one of the worst in the series. I'll go over the biggest offenders in my mind to support my statement above.
1st and formost is a complete lack of defense. Games are complete shootouts you will simply score on each other at will. This is due to the defensive AI which is completely incapable of defending the pass. This is true even with shut down corners like Revis or Asomugha do not expect to blitz or run zone to create pressure because your dbs no matter there skill will get burned for deep routes or over the middle. This happens way to often especially with TE streak routes which remain wide open 85 percent of the time.
2nd is a complete lack of consecutive hit tackling. From the biggest back to the smallest reciever everyone is breaking the 1st tackle no matter there rating's or momentum. This causes pile ups where only the original player to make contact effects the outcome of the play many times resulting in the ball carrier squeaking through for a big gain or many times a touchdown. This many years into this generation and they still have not implemented this at all. PS2 version has and continues to have this option to this day. I have seen small reciever's like DeSean Jackson who weighs in at about 175 pounds break tackles from linebackers like Ray Lewis or Patrick Willis this my friends simply does not happen in the NFL.
3rd laggy online play. With kids and a family getting the fellas over is not the best option for me to get human to human competition so online is my main option. Sadly this game has noticeable lag online which really hampers your timing. Every snap on offense will hitch when your center snaps the ball. Most troublesome is the new kicking meter which the lag completely breaks. Resulting in missed field goals and kick off's flying out of bounds.
4th is the Strategy pad EA mapped presnap controls to this new mechanic which simply broke what did not need to be fixed. Before it was easy to set pesnap adjustments to your whole offense/defense or individual players. Now what was intended to simplify has just been made more complicated. This will be addressed in a later patch so that is good news.
There are more issues that I won't list simply for wall of text reasons. I'll just finish by saying that If you remember the glory years of Madden 04, 05 then look elsewhere. This game is the least Sim of recent years especially with it's focus on offensive play over balance on both sides of the ball. Which to me is a shame because if they gave defense equal footing in there priorities when creating this game it could have been the best in the series.
