If you can get the game right so that it apropriately fits your playstyle, to you it will be the best football game ever
The actual football is nothing short of brilliant. The players react to their surroundings so realistically, the first game you play has you drooling. The most amazing part, however, is the fact that this variance in tackle animations and other animations on the field are constantly changing. 20 hours into the game, you might see 2 or 3 on field action animations in one game that you havent seen after all those hours of playing. However, i would have to complain a little bit that the running animation looks a little akward. In the running game there will be times where you will be vaulting over the goaline, pushing on the backs of your guards to try to see your possible angles.
One great tackling and running feature is the Maximum Tackle system. When your opponent's running back is running and he gets in a wrap tackle, you simply tap tap tap x until he is brought down. There are two types of tackles, a quick run stopping however innacurate tackle, and a pull down wrap tackle. The latter is executed by just a tap on x, and the other is when you hold down x. This creates a great defensive system. It also allows for a lot of gang tackles, which are amazing looking. In madden, a gang tackle would be one guy tackling another and then some other defender does a dive tackle over the both of them. On the other side of this, the running system works similarly. A person runs by quickly tapping a and does moves with the other buttons and can also use the right thumbstick, which is a bit simpler but not very practical. One can enhance a move by holding a, which charges up the moves to pull off bigger, better, moves. A simply brilliant system.
The graphics are beautiful and the sound is great, ranging from people on the field screaming catcalls and calling out offenders, and the fans cheering from the stands. The commentary is nothing extraordinary, but it's good.
However, in between all that comes the annoying part. The dynasty and gameplay can seem imbalanced in a bunch of ways. The season does not really work out how one would expect, and in some cases, things turn out incredibly unrealisticly. This is a bit shadowed by the EXTREMELY in depth options one has off the field. It has so much depth, i can not go very much into it, but i can tell you that it includes a weekly workout scheduele allowing you to customize the entire team's weekly routine.
The gameplay imbalances often result in way too many interceptions, running games without many yards, and TERRIBLE pass defense. The computer simply reacts to having a dumb pass play ai by bombarding you with interceptions and fumbles. Some really rediculous things happen. The user controlled defense is completely useless downfield.
If you can get some sliders to fix the game to be a bit more realistic in that respect, you will have on your hands the best football game ever, and i would reccomend it to anyone.