Football Manager 2010 is a solid improvement over 09 and cuts out a lot of tedious repetitive tasks.
Since my very first save game in FM 08 I have always picked Hyde United as my main team. No idea why, I'd never even heard of them before I played the game, but I've been playing with them for so long now I find it hard to get interested in any other teams, although of course I do fiddle around with some of the larger premiership sides. There is something so satisfying about taking your struggling little team from the Blue Square North Competition right up into the Premier League. But anyway, about the game!
The major difference of FM 2010 over 09 is the User Interface. It has had a complete overhaul and personally I am very glad of the change. The screen just feels so much cleaner and everything feels very easy to access this time around. Much less clutter and much less clicking to get into the info screens that you use most often. It does take a bit of getting used to, but once you've discovered where everything is it's a breeze. I think there could still be a few more tweaks to this though, some things aren't in the spot you think they would be, but it's still a huge improvement over last years which was getting too complicated and too bloated.
The New Tactics Wizard is a nice tool, but I did find myself reverting to the sliders just because I've become used to from previous versions. It is great to have the settings for the different positions though, "Poacher", "Advanced Attacker", etc. It does make things much easier than having to fiddle with the sliders constantly. My favourite new tactics feature, is the "Ask Assistant" button for the Opposition Tactics screen. I found it absolutely infuriating to set the same tactics for the same opposition positions every single game with the annoying drop down menus in the previous versions. Now just one click and it's done, usually I just went with whatever my assistant recommended in the last game anyway.
The Performance of 2010 for me is faster than 09. Loading is quicker, which is great if you hate watching that loading screen, but could also mean that you can load up a few more leagues without slowing down your game time compared to last years experience. One slight annoyance I have found though is that switching between screens with the spacebar in the UI, such as going through the Pre Match info screens, can sometimes be sluggish. Sometimes just pressing the spacebar doesn't work and you need to hold it down for a second or two. Though sometimes it seems just to lag then skip over 2 pages very quickly, which I will then have to go back and read. This has happened in every version though I think, I wish it was quicker here, or they would tell you it was loading so I could be sure I'd started it. It doesn't happen all the time, but can be slightly annoying.
The Match Engine seems much the same as 09, which is a good thing. I can't fault it much really, I'm no football expert but to my ignorant footy mind the games play out well and generally quite realistically. I feel that there are a few too many penalties though, probably too many yellow cards/fouling in general and that there are too many goals scored from a 30+ yard range. But as I said I'm no football expert so I'll leave that up to the other players who know more about it to make judgements on.
The 3D graphics have improved over last year, but they are still a long way away from Fifa. They have apparently added 100 animations to this version, but the variety is still very scarce. The movements are pretty unnatural, I could go on, but a quick view of one of the gameplay videos will sum it up much better than I can here. Basically, FM 2010 looks like a 5 year olds finger painting when put up against the Mona Lisa that is Fifa Managers graphics. But Fifa have been making 3D football games for at least 10 years now, where as SI is only in it's second year of 3D development. SI's graphics are also extremely fast to load and extremely smooth to play through, making pausing and scrolling through the match time viewer to see your idiot defender put the ball past your own keeper a very responsive and easy task. The fast forwarding and rewinding features also work very well with little to no frame rate glitches or slow downs. It also means that even if you have a pretty bad computer you can still probably use the 3D graphics mode, or if your computer can't handle it you can always switch to the 2D mode, which despite your players only appearing as little dots is still very entertaining to watch.
The thing I do like about SI's graphics, is that they have relevance to the gameplay. The newly added supporter stands bring atmosphere to a game when they are full of fans and dull the atmosphere when there are only 100 of them in the audience, despite them only being very crude 2D cut outs that bob up and down to cheer instead of having an animation. The supporter graphics definately need some work, it's not so bad when you have say 30 thousand of them all packed into the stands, but when you only have 300, their bad textures and extremely basic animations really stand out. But the concept is good. Stands also add a bit more variety to match days, which can at times seem very repetitive in their visuals and it's nice to see your stands get bigger as you upgrade your stadium.
Your Backroom staff take on more of an active role in this release. Your coaches will suggest things such as which younger player would benefit from the tutoring of which older player, what special moves to teach your players and when they feel you should praise or criticize your players in the media. All your staff will also suggest players to scout and also suggest staff members you might want to employ. I've generally found this to be a very helpful addition, and gives you more of a sense of working within a team, rather than being a sort of Overlord/Manager.
Just about one of the other reviews regarding difficulty levels. It is largely redundant. If you want a more difficult playing experience, don't play with the biggest sides that have the best players and the most cash. Pick a side that is struggling in the lower leagues that has no money and is in massive debt. It's as hard as you want it to be, all just depends on what team you start with (or you can of course start unemployed) and how you you want to play.
Everything else is much the same as 09, but as with all games that come out once a year, changes are largely incremental, especially with all the patches that come out inbetween releases as well nowadays. If you buy the game every year, there are no reasons that you should skip this release. If you have never played the game before and are a football fan, for heavens sake buy it! But if you've already got 09, 2010 is basically the same game, just streamlined, so it's up to you whether you think that's enough to justify another purchase. But one thing I can say for sure is that once you have 2010, 09 can go back in its box, I've already uninstalled 09 because I know that there is no way I can go back to it after playing with 2010 for only 6 full seasons.