WWE '12 is not a bettering of the past installments, it's actually a highly flawed worsening of them.
The biggest improvement in this game is the ability to interrupt moves. From finishers to just regular grapples, you can now easily break them up instead of just watching your opponent lay waste to another competitor or even your own partner. Another big improvement is the limb targeting, it can really help you target each limb of your opponent's body and specifically go after one of your choosing's. Another thing that is a slight improvement is the new controls, I say slight because not everyone may like the new controls, I don't even like them much.
The bad parts of this game are actually pretty significant. The first would be that this game is littered with glitches! Glitches are everywhere, from animations messing up to you just floating across the floor. This game has far too many glitches that I hope are fixed by an upcoming update. The ring was supposed to be made more realistic, but I don't see much improvement. What I do see is a regression of the rope mechanics. We can still do springboard moves off of the ropes, but now the animation when you lean against them is gone! You just stand by the ring ropes and do your springboard attack. This is a big declination of the physics and mechanics of the game! Depending on who you are this next complaint can go either way, but I do not like the Road to Wrestlemania mode in this game. There is no walking around and actually completing objectives behind stage anymore, when you are backstage you'll just have to walk a short couple of steps and have a match or a backstage fight. What's the point of even being able to walk around backstage if you can't do anything at all? You can't even talk to the wrestlers standing backstage! Also what's with this prompt button they have? In Road to Wrestlemania mode you'll find out that you won't be having many "real" matches anymore. You'll just have to wrestle your opponent a short time and press the prompt button, when your, yes you guessed it, when you're prompted! This will then go into a cut scene in the match. You might even have to do this a couple times each match. What happened to actually wrestling and having to pin or submit your opponent on your own? Also, the reversal system is slightly flawed, you'll be struggling to reverse moves when you swore you pressed it at the right time. But, it's not that big of a problem since it's not greatly flawed that you'll never be able to reverse, you'll still be able to reverse fairly well if you know what you're doing. Again, let me say that the game is littered with glitches! Imagine being in a match with John Cena in Road to Wrestlemania mode and John Cena is outside the ring just not moving? The referee will start counting, but stop when he reaches to 9! How cheap is that? I won't even be able to hit him and I get attacked by his partner and the referee starts the count over and counts to 10? And guess who loses, not John Cena that's been outside for a good 29 minutes! Finally, even though they've added many new moves into this game, which they should do each game, they've also removed many moves.
Lastly, I want to say that even though most critics, such as IGN, are giving this game a much better rating than the previous game and saying that it's greatly improved, I believe this installment is worse. Many may disagree, but if you actually notice all that is gone from this game and think back and fully remember that last installment you'll realize this is worse. They added big improvements, which I'm sure everyone is ecstatic about, but once you get done with that you'll start to notice everything that is wrong with WWE '12.