A good game with a bright future.
The game starts out as you are an offensive or defensive coordinator (you choose) for the world champion Steelers, and now every team wants you to be there new head coach. You customize your coaches clothing and offensive and defensive strategies (ex. spread offense, 46 defense, etc.). Then you will pick a team that you would like to coach and you are thrown into an interview. You will first be asked questions for motivation, strategy, player evaluation, and work ethic, and depending on how much they like your answer, you will get an attribute boost. Then you will be asked position specific questions for offense if you were an offensive coordinator and defense for a defensive coordinator, and again, based on your answer depends on your stat increase. Finally you will be asked a question about the opposite side of the ball you used to coach. You will be given 3 answers based on different defensive positions, and which ever position you choose for your answer, depends on which of those positions you coach better. Next your agent will call you and you will see that five teams gave you an offer. You can review the offer and choose the one you want. Now your on to your new team.
You start at the offseason, so you will be re-signing players, signing free agents, and drafting players. The draft AI will let very good players slide by, so expect to see Reggie Bush around pick 10 and Vince Young around pick 20.
On to gameplay. During the game, you will be coaching the team from the sidelines. Your coordinators suggest plays, but you make the final decision. You can also motivate players, make substitutions, and review game stats during the game, but be aware the game will continue to play while you do these things. The gameplay is fun, but the preseason is pretty easy. You won't see real looking stats, and you will see a handful of turnovers.
This game looks fairly well, as they use the madden game engine to show the games, and they make it work very nicely. They show Trey Wingo and Steve Sabol, and make them look very good for a video game.
The sound is good, but you will constantly be hearing the NFL Films music.
This game is pretty replayable because it has a 40 year career mode, so you would think you could play it a lot, but then comes repetitiveness. It will most likely get very repetitive, seeing as I have played 17 hours and have gotten through 2 regular season games. Also there are only 3 game modes, 2 if you don't have XBOX Live. Career mode, coach now, and coach online. All of them one player.
I would say if you are the person who simulates franchise mode games to get to the offseason or uses coach mode in madden sometimes, this game is for you. If you are the person who loves to take over the game with your star running back or quarter back, then wait for madden.