Defense is better. Its more competitive. Realistic fisical engine. GREAT grafics. LICENSES.
Defense is smarter than in any other game, so it makes the game way more competitive and make you think in real strategy to make big plays. This makes the game a lot more interesting than just running and scoring.
The new fisical engine simulate real life impacts. This is a huge new good point couse you will be dealing with real life animations, injurys, efects and others. Makes the game more fun and really nice to see. If you go to replay you can apriciate this with no problem, as well as if someone get injured you'll see clearly why (smooth like HD TV replays).
Grafics are even better than before (even though we know FIFA's series had always count with nice grafs) you can see this even in shadows of the stadium around the field. Faces similarities to real life are amazingly good. Even though we all expect nice grafics from EA sports I think its good poitn to notice and review.
Licenses. This is an important point when it comes to sports games, it avoids patches, cracks, and all that kind of stuff (which if you ask me, its anoying). Fifa has always had a lot of licenses and they kep the style in that, we can find 1 divisions, 2nd, and even third football divisions with real team names and players, not to mention real divition names, logos and al the cups, tournaments and everything that you find in real life soccer(football).
In general this game is as good as the other versions but with even more great things. its totally the best sport option for this years edition. No doubt about it. You have a lot in multiplayer games, with new matchmaking modes and you can also play a bunch of online games (normal games, tournaments, allstar teams with trading options, managger kind of games, etc)
You wount regret this new FIFA12