With a recognizable list of fighters, and great cage fighting, UFC 2010 is a nice addition to a fan's collection.
If I wasn't a fan, I'm not sure if I would like this game as much as I do. Because I like to pit different fighters against each other that I think would be interesting match ups. So the exhibition mode is plenty of fun for me. But for people who don't follow UFC in general mightn't find as much pleasure out of it.
Career mode is sort of mixed reactions for me. Create a fighter is very well done and fun to go through. There are many different fighting styles to pick and different skills you can focus on as a fighter. Once you pick your style and decide what part of your game you want to focus on, you are thrown into the ring to begin your journey to becoming the champion. Depending on what difficulty setting you choose to play through ultimately determines what type of experience you will have. Playing in beginner can be alright at first, but soon becomes way too easy. And playing in expert can be very demanding. I play in advanced (third hardest mode) and I find that later in your career it can be tedious. Fighting inside the cage is a lot of fun and hands down the shining point of the game, and I'd hope so, but training a fighter can get on your nerves.
You have 16 different skill attributes to put points in, and depending on how you want to fight, you can choose to ignore some if you want to focus on a certain thing. Although, unless you reach cap points, if you ignore those skill attributes for too long they will begin to decay and you will lose some points. Later in your career this can become quite annoying because it becomes expensive distributing points into your skills. And playing in advanced makes it really tough to do. Because when sparring to gather points for your attributes, you really need to be something special to accumulate anything worthwhile.
After a while, whether you are playing on beginner or advanced, it either becomes too easy in the ring or too frustrating to train your fighter to become half decent.
Online mode also is something I'm rather disappointed in. It'd be really great to pit yourself against another person to test your mettle as a fighter, but the horrific lag ruins the entire experience. I never lag in any sort of multiplayer game, but so far every match up I've been in has been hampered by lag. If that could be fixed, it'd be amazing fun.
I rated this game an 8 because I love the UFC and I actually do find this game a lot of fun. I've spent hours just in exhibition mode alone. And all of the different fighting styles and depth you can find inside the octagon is really staggering. They have really outdone themselves in that department. I just wish they would have put a little bit more love into career mode and the online.
If you are a fun of the UFC or the game series, I would definitely recommend buying this game. But if you're on the fence or are fresh to the scene, try renting it first.