A shallow franchise mode, terrible commentary and awkward gameplay sum up this unfortunately dismal NFL expirience.
To be frank the most disappointing experiences I've had with madden has been with our current gen ('next gen') offerings on the Xbox 360, Wii and Ps3. In owning both the 360 and Wii versions, I can say that, for a madden buff like myself, they're massively disappointing for a variety of different reasons.
As far as The Xbox 360's (and PS3's) madden is concerned it suffers from a myriad of issues. For example, its gravest fault is in it's terribly basic franchise mode, which doesn't include restricted free agents, realistic or progressive free-agent activity (IE, teams hang on to their players as much as possible, which is not like the NFL at all) , a consistent or effective means of player progression, an effective morale system and so on. As a result, the high powered Madden's of the 360 and PS3 fail to provide an engaging experience that really makes you feel like the league is 'alive'. One simply feels like nearly every CPU controlled team is stuck in a cryogenic hibernation, where they'll only make the most minimum effort to rework their teams as years go by. In fact, you'll feel like nearly every player is static, as well, due to a sub-par progression system that happens only once a year, and it doesn't happen effectively, at that. (As an example, my friend's Franchise saw Aaron Rogers (under his control), win Quarterback of the year and the superbowl, but he didn't improve statistically; whilst his backup went up 2 points overall for taking 2 snaps all season.
Furthermore even when gameplay is considered, the lack of on field injuries further hampers the realism, whilst the fact that nearly any player can break away and be uncatchable in the open field, does the same.
To make matters worse, as far as the Xbox 360 version is concerned, the announcer is simply terrible. This is the first game I have heard of that has a announcer who unapologetically roots for your team? Radio announcer or not, I'm of the mind that it simply fails to capture any sort of realism at all; never mind his comments themselves being bland and unimportant.
Hell, even animations in Madden 08 on the 360 leave something to be desired. The multi-man hits usually feature a scenario where the running is contacted and held up by the first defender, and then is simply pushed to the ground from behind, the side, or the front, by an oncoming second defender who attempts to wrap him up. Needless to say, the majority of the hits are hardly vicious, and the ones that are, (like a safety taking a mid-air receiver out by the legs causing him to flip and land on his head but walk away fine) just don't seem right.
So, with a mediocre franchise mode that misses so much of what made the classic madden's of last generation such fun, a terrible announcer, strange almost hyper-realistic gameplay rife with big plays, massive amounts of interceptions, and strange looking tackles… Madden 08 on the 360 (while it may look pretty) is simply a total and utter letdown to anyone who calls themselves a true fan of the game of football.
These so-called "next-gen" football games just don't cut it any longer.
I honestly suggest going to the classic gameplay of the basically bug-free PC version of 08 this year, and hope that if you're a franchise junkie like me, that great franchise mode will surface in later iterations of the series.