Face scanning, voice acted players, a new UI, Shaq and Ernie (no Charles or Kenny), NBA 2kTV, accurate cheerleader models, and a soundtrack by Pharrell. These are all things I heard about in previews, and none of them pertain to the actual basketball-ing that this game features. This is the kind of game that will be highly reviewed by reviewers because they are gamers first and foremost, and they have casual basketball knowledge. They don't follow the league, they don't know all the players, they don't understand the sport, and they certainly don't have a reference to compare the gameplay to because of the relative atrocity that is NBA Live. I have been playing NBA 2k for the past ten years and can safely say this is the lowest the series has ever been.
The gameplay is badly balanced and doesn't resemble actual basketball in many ways. It seems like the game purposefully makes it more or less difficult at times for the sake of balance. I don't know why this is. The shot timing thing is okay but it's got a slight margin of error which isn't ideal. You miss many shots you should not miss with just the slightest bit off when you're wide open. You miss layups over defenders who you shouldn't miss them over, you miss putbacks off offensive rebounds basically always, and you just can't seem to dribble the way the AI does (they don't lose the ball almost ever despite clipping through with their dribble animations).
The game modes are really all shells of themselves. MyGM mode's bad trade logic is back. New to the series is the "practice intensity" meter which, despite being able to set different intensity for different players, it will not recognize this when the player then gets angry at you for "lying" to him. I put his individual practice intensity higher and yet he complains still about how low practice intensity is. It's just insane. I hate the trade logic of this game. It is game breaking.
MyCareer features the worst teammate AI in the history of the franchise. Particularly on highest/higher difficulties, where the opposing team gets better but your team's AI doesn't get better to compensate. You control your character and the other 4 are controlled by the AI, and it is atrocious. It doesn't take shots, it doesn't make the few it takes, and it routinely gives up open shots for contested ones. It doesn't play defense. The opponent AI, however, is excellent. I know for a fact 2k could balance this better. I just know it. The game ignores when you press the button for the teammate to shoot, and I swear that every time I've pressed the button and the guy did shoot, it missed. It misses so often that it feels like they expect me to use that button to time my teammate's shot the same way I have to time my shots. You need to average many, many points to get wins in this mode.
I've never been so frustrated playing a game. Never one time in my whole life. This is the most unappealing experience on PC right now. It's just mind-boggling how they can see the forums about these problems in 2k14 and just ignore them. I truly believe this series has had its day already. 2k11 was the last time it was good. Now it's just a cash-grab, $60 and VC purchases for animations. I just hate this game. I play it because I love basketball so much that I'm willing to play despite the flaws, and because on PC you can't return it. Don't get it if you haven't already. I could go on and go more in-depth, but I'm not being paid to write a review. I think this is the worst review Gamespot has ever done, quite honestly. It's like the reviewer played each mode for one hour and decided okay, I'll review it now. Maybe he never played these games before, who knows.