An Honest review from a Madden enthusiast.
This year the overall game is very solid. Some discrepancies are glaring and some not so much, but overall a good game. I own it on the PS3.
First I wanna start by talking about the graphics. The player models are great for the most part. Aside from some DL's and OL's looking like they inject steroid into their chests. The animations are definitely smoother than they have ever been. I'm still seeing new animations and I've been playing it for a week. Also, the 3-D grass is a nice touch, but it is a shame that it is only visible on replays and cut scenes. When it is there it is pretty. The grass even flies up when players are running on it, which is a nice touch.
I also heard that the XBox 360 has better visuals than the PS3. The one major difference was the field. On the PS3, I noticed, the indoor stadiums have patchy looking fields sometimes. Overall it isn't an issue.
Next is the audio. The biggest problem with the audio is the announcing. The announcers seem like they are watching 2 different games sometimes, and other times it's like they're watching it on a 10 second delay. Chris Collinsworth's player analysis is horribly wrong at a lot of points. Mostly, when he says that "Tom Brady is not one of the most accurate passers in the league...." When I heard that I cringed. Then it happened with Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and every QB who throws an incompletion. It's annoying, but I just tune it out now so it doesn't bother me anymore.
Last is about the gameplay. I play the game for franchise and that's mainly it. As long as I get to completely control my team, I'm happy. The expanded roster is cool, in theory, but for me it just adds a bunch of crappy rookies that you'd never sign otherwise. If you aren't careful and don't know your actual draft picks then you'll end up cutting your teams first rounder for some 36 overall. So pay attention to the rosters before you do franchise. There are your standard game modes with few tweaks, but in my opinion they're pretty solid. The NFL doesn't drastically change every year so neither should the game.
The new team specific player walk-outs were a good addition to the presentation. After I've seen a team's walk-out I usually just skip through it, because there is no commentary or anything accompanying it. It just gets old after a while.
Overall, I enjoy this game. If you are a football fan you should at least try it. It is the best game in the series to date. Next year they need to work on the announcing, that would have made this game an 8.5, at least. Good presentation, but nowhere near NFL 2K5. Maybe next year.