This game's learning curve is so horrendous, it will turn off 50% of those who pick it up within the first hour.
Note: game was played on heavyweight class for career mode.
BREAKDOWN:
Graphics: Fantastic graphics for characters, animations are solid with the exception of "jedi" hits where the animation was short but the hit contacted. Sweat, blood, cuts, all look amazing.
Sound: Commentary is good for the most part. It seems to lack any sort of excitement. The crowd NEVER gets into it, there is no atmosphere. Sounds like there are 5 people cheering. Very few things to be said in career mode, lackluster there as your created character is entirely ignored by announcers except for the "nickname" introduction.
Gameplay: Here is where my issue falls. To understand the extreme depth of this game, you must spend your first 45 minutes playing going through the extensive tutorial (not to mention this tutorial leaves much out and details of HOW exactly things work completely ignored). Playing the game itself seems very fluid for a while. Stand-up is very intuitive and makes sense. Attacks feel natural, movement solid. Here is where the negative starts coming big. The flash knockouts happen WAAAAAAAAAY too much. Often in the first round a random hook will take you out without so much as a blink of an eye, where you could be wailing on the computer for an hour with power punch after power punch. The ground game is HORRIBLY complex. Movement never seems to work, there is no way to figure it out as the computer is quick to exploit everything and end the fight quickly. The learning curve is absolutely oppressive. It is all a matter of spotting the small movements and countering. Sadly, the system is very picky about the inputs and half the time you'll still find yourself mounted getting the **** kicked out of you.
Past the ground game is the submission system. It is a button mashing or joystick spinning crap-fest. Your hands will hurt, and there is very little point to even attempting them outside of multiplayer. The game needs some serious tweaking here.
Career mode has too many issues to be solid: Players don't age. You rise through the ranks in around 8-9 fights, meaning your overall will be around 40 when you are fighting Brock Lesnar or Frank Mir (aka 80-90). That makes everything VERY unbalanced. Menus are horrible and painful to navigate. Too much mundane crap in between fights which are usually over very quickly (5 minutes or so). Unless you are a SERIOUS UFC fan and you know the ins and outs of MMA, this game will be EXTREMELY difficult for you and most likely more pain than its worth. Rent it, see if you like it, don't make the same mistake I did and waste 60 bucks.
Happy Gaming if you enjoy it.