Great game, with great gameplay, however bugs that crash your franchise or RTTS mode hamper the overall experiance.
Where MLB 09 really shines is its amazing gameplay. The guys at Sony really made this game pretty well balanced as you will rarely find your self being blownout or you blowing your oppistion out. MLB 09 also has a pretty stiff learning curve which might ditract casual players. For hardcore baseball fans MLB 09 will be the closest thing you'll get to Major Leagues without actually playing baseball. The graphics and player models look amazing, especially at 720p.
MLB 09 offers two main modes, Road to The Show, which is a career mode, and Franchise Mode. Both are incredibly deep and detailed as you can control every aspect of your player or franchise. However a bug that makes the screen black and send back you the XMB can really ditracrt from the game. This bug usually happens after the first year so people who actually play their season won't be affected, but the people who like to build their franchices from the ground up and simulate for 20 seasons might find this as a gamebreaker. Since this always happens on a certain date when you simulate there is no way around, no matter how many times you reload your file.
MLB 09 does offer an online mode but this is unplayable. You could see where MLB 09 would be a blast to play online because of the great gameplay but uncontrollale lag no matter how could your connection is makes this game online unplayable.
MLB 09 is a good game, with great gameplay, however simulation bugs and unplayable onlline holds it back from being one of the great ones. MLB 09 The Show is defitnatly going to the all star game but probably won't be elected to the Hall of Fame.