The main modes you will spend most of your time in, offline at least, are Be An NFL Superstar and Franchise. Superstar is a trimmed down take on the plodding monotony of last year's version. They remove most of the mid-week training requirements and put the focus on playing the games. Confusingly, there is still one practice a week on the calendar, though they force you to run one auto-selected play until you decide to quit, with the results never making a difference on the team or your player. You are better off simply skipping the practices altogether. Franchise mode receives small, but important, updates. In game, you have more control over player injuries. After team doctors have evaluated an injured player, you receive notice of the nature of it and how great the risk of further injury is. You then decide whether to send the player back in to the game, or to move his backup into the action to avoid risking a more serious injury.
Most of the changes are most noticeable between seasons. Signing free agents is a bit less of a guessing game, with players detailing the importance of a wide variety of factors when signing. You get to see how important anything from market size to coaching is to a player, in addition to the all-important money, and how interested they are generally in your team. Perhaps the more important signings are those on your coaching staff, with many coaches also coming with attribute boosts various categories, depending on their specialty. It finally makes the coaching personnel decisions important in your franchise. Stadium upgrades are available for the obsessive, as well as the ability to pick up and move your team to another NFL-hungry market if you so desire. It might be worth it to some, just for the ability to rename your team and give it a new logo, in addition to building a new stadium from scratch.
Madden is easily the best of the series, but it is not quite perfect. The incorporation of Godfather-esque micro transactions in the offline franchise mode is depressing. Gamers have the option of purchasing boosts to make their offline franchises easier. There around twenty boosts in all, ranging from $2 to keep a player from retiring for a year to $1 to give a player maximum progression in the off-season or another buck to reverse any injury. It cheapens an otherwise fantastic product, and makes the $5 for a Madden Elite Membership seem even sillier. The membership, seemingly as smart and useful as the "I'm Rich" iPhone app, unlocks access to VIP lobbies and an additional difficulty more suited for the 'hardcore' Madden player. A better option would be to reward in-game points based on how you play, and allow players to use those points to purchase the boosts if they want. Madden does not need this awkward cash grab.
The game is stunning, visually; with the most realistic looking football action you will likely see this generation. Animations are incredibly fluid, with players moving and reacting to situations, and the ground, as if you are watching a live game. The few bits you see outside of gameplay are a bit less impressive, with oddly ugly player faces on the sidelines and in post-game interviews, but so long as the gameplay looks this good, you are not going to care much. The game is impressively smooth, with the exception of the few moments of frame rate sputtering during the occasional kickoff; thankfully not affecting gameplay. The more subtle, muffled on-field player chatter gives the game a more realistic ambient sound that more closely resembles watching it on TV.
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