Retarded player AI and broken tactical defending sum up this game's horrendous gameplay 'improvements'.
Graphics: First of all, the graphics seem to be a tad cut back from fifa 11..possibly to incorporate the impact engine on the game's engine. Speaking of which, the player impact engine is poorly implemented and has ruined the game's visual consistency because of it's glitches and overhyped falls. Most importantly in the graphics department, player celebrations look grotesque and totally ruin your satisfaction of hard earned goals.The camera zooms in too much and can sometime focus on the player's body rather than his face.Worse is that the impact engine which should have been disabled for celebrations causes players to unnaturally celebrate with teammates leading to glitches,missing arms,awkward player hugs etc. Animations are stiff and abnormal as well.
Gameplay: L1 is used for close control in this game and can actually be useful and quite fun to use. The attacking in this game is also way more fun than 11 and it's possible to score from far out with no kamikaze defenders to bother about this time. However player AI is so mindbendingly retarded that they either make stupid offside runs or start making runs and stop abruptly just when you have pressed the through ball button. Now start the defending problems, the hyped tactical defending is so horribly flawed and mind*******ly boring. On higher difficulties you can forget about keeping your clean sheet. Opposition AI pass amongst themselves and can go all the way back if need warrants. Tackling is broken and players end up tackling air most of the time. And skilled players like ronaldo,messi etc do some fancy skills and you end up conceding frustrating cheap goals. And the worst part is you can't switch to legacy defending in online ranked matches.
Features: There is that easfc thing which gives you exp for everything but is totally rewardless. The support your club is a nice addition though. Ultimate team is still addicting and fun although some critical disconnections can happen. Online is decent but broken because of tactical defending. Gameface is broken and is not recommended. And some questionable design options in career mode may cause your virtual pro to disappear from your squad permanently.
Music: As always, top notch from EA.
Overall: I would recommend you pass this one up and hope fifa 13 rectifies 12's problems and builds on 11.
Score: 5.5/10