In-depth, unbiased review.
I'm a huge MJ fan, so that fact that he was going to be in this game (even without the Jordan Challenge Modes or whatever) would mean nothing less than a pre-order. And the game wastes no time in reminding you that this is all MJ. Soon as you boot up, you don't see menus or gameplay footage.. You get thrown into Finals against Magic and the Lakers with one of the many classic Bulls teams.
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Then the gameplay takes over. It's such a huge change from the older versions. AI is much better now, I don't see Joakim Noah throwing up 3's just because he's open, although you may see a center hang on to the ball then throw up a long range shot because the clock has gone down, instead of passing it, but nowhere near as annoying as 2K10.
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If there was 1 thing I thought the NBA Live/Elite series got right, it was the controls. 2K got this right on both offense and defense, although I feel the defensive side still needs more improvement. The new ISOmotion is mostly concise, and helps you actually do what you intended to do, unlike 2K10's controls, which were quite a mess.
The alley-oop was also changed from L2+pass to L2+fake pass. It's a great little touch so you won't accidentally throw a lob if you press L2 by mistake.
I do have some annoyances with the controls though. The advanced shot stick moves are a bit too robotic, especially the hopstep dunks. You could be in full speed, but when you activate a hopstep dunk or lay-up, you'd have to conform to what random animation you triggered, so you could all of a sudden slow down to perform that specific action, that feels very odd and annoying specially since you had full sprint.
I also really dislike the "Rim-hang dunks". They're not even allowed in the NBA, as you get technicals for excessive hanging on the rim. Not all of them, but a lot of them are ridiculously long.
And lastly for the controls, having to press (PS3 version) L2+R2 to initiate the post up is stupid. I don't know why they changed it from just L2.
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Right away though, you see how hard they've made the passing game. At first, I liked it. You really had to work hard to make sure no one could get in your passing lane before you threw it. As time went on though, it was more of a chore and the AI is far too psychic for it to be just good defense. You can tell that the defense reacts to the control pad, as a very very soft nudge of the left stick would almost always cause them to do the cut off move to that direction, which you can exploit to your advantage, but it ruins the realism. It's cheap, and takes away from the experience.
Although there is much less "speed bursts" from the computer, it's still there, as you can see with fast breaks, where centers can keep up and even catch your point guard, although I do get the occasional completely unhindered fast breaks, but are few and far in between. It's more evident in half court offense that you can have a man truly open if the computer commits to a double team which is a relief after last year's version where the CPU would just hit the NOS and cover the "open" man.
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As of the other modes, I was a big My Player fan from 2K10, and I can say that they have made changes to 2K11's iteration. I was able to be a late 1st round draft pick in my playthrough, so I can't comment of what happens if I went in the 2nd round or if I wasn't drafted. In 2K10, you could pick which team to try out for, proving you played well enough. In 2K11, it's more realistic, if not a bit restricting, where you get drafted and you have no say. I do like the options to demand a trade and the game will ask you for your top 3 teams you are interested in being traded to, although I haven't yet been traded so I haven't seen that far yet. Press conferences also add a little extra to it, although so far it seems a bit superficial, but can't really comment on it yet.
Drills are still a bit annoying for me, with regards to the bonus skill you get when you get gold. I don't actually know how to get extra skill I want, with the exception of the shooting drills, which still frustrate me when all I do is shoot set 3's ( I actually stand still and let my player dribble twice before each shot to ensure it's not a shot off dribble) and still get Shoot Off Dribble as my added stat. Pulling off the dribble course fast doesn't guarantee a speed bonus either. I just wish the bonus skill would be much more directly related to how you performed in the drills. Overall though, I love My Player.
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The Jordan Challenge: Love it. But I think it would vary from person to person. I disagree with what the reviewer form Gamespot said about having the required stats to be met as "devaluing". It shows how tough it was to pull off, and serves to show people how great he actually was. It wouldn't be a fair tribute to MJ if we didn't "feel" what it was like to average over 31 points and keep a 55% FG, whilst averaging 11 assists per game in the Lakers Finals series.
My only disappointment is that they couldn't get all the players from the old Bulls teams, like Randy Brown, Jason Caffey, Brian Williams, Scott Burell, as they did play their roles, and I found myself struggling to find proper substitutions at times, especially when I had to rest MJ. Hopefully they can be added later, but I doubt it. Still, I love the Jordan Challenge and the Classic Teams.
To add, I just completed all the challenges, and have started the Creating A Legend feature. It's basically a My Player but using Jordan as a rookie and pitting him in the current NBA. In 2K10, I created Jordan from scratch and did just this, so this is pretty much the icing on the cake for me. You start out with MJ as he did when he was a rookie, so virutally no 3pt shooting or post game to begin with, and go through the same drills and typical My Player stuff to get better. He does start out at a rating of 79, but I've found the game objectives a bit harsh. I know it only adds 100 to your skill points, but I still like to go after the objectives, and forcing my match-up to commit 7 turnovers seemed next to impossible.
I can't comment on the Association yet though as I haven't tried it. I do hope that it doesn't suffer from the problems from last year. My major annoyance was that the same players kept on being made available and traded away constantly. The trades are smarter now, but they still seem to keep trading away people they just acquired. I wish the trading would be turned down. It seems that players get moved around much too often compared to the real world.
I don't play online much either, but last year it was all laggy anyway, and this year, I haven't tried it yet either, although I hear it still suffers from the same problems. Hopefully this could get ironed out.
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All in all, it's the best sports game for me, to date. An incredible leap from the past iterations, and I hope they've set the standard for year to year versions of all sports games. It'll be a long year until 2K12 comes out, but it'll be much, much easier to wait for it, as 2K11 is great. Still problems to change, and suits the more hardcore player, but overall, fun.