Very good boxing game and perhaps the best one ever made.
Graphics: The graphics in the game are great. Players look good, especially the facial models. They are very real to life. The animations are all very smooth, and they never glitch. The stadiums look amazing, with different lighting and fireworks going off. The crowds look fine, but they aren't anything to get excited over. The ring girls look hot, so thats always a plus. Sweat and blood flies, so when you knock somebody out, you can see the effects. The one problem area for graphics/ animations is when you knock someone down. It looks really rag doll like and unrealistic. The ropes bend in and out when you hit them on the way down, but they usually don't move the right way. Overall, the graphics are great.
Sound: The soundtrack is good in this game, composed mainly of rap music. It's just too bad you can't use custom soundtracks. Other than that, there really isn't much sound except for the crowd and the commentators. The commentators do a pretty good job, but sometimes they fall behind when the fight picks up speed. The crowd gets louder and softer depending on whats going on in the fight. They get excited when something big happens, like a knockdown or haymaker. At the end of a round, your trainer will talk to you. There are only so many things they say, and after a few fights, you hear all there is to hear. The sound is fine, but nothing special.
Gameplay: You use the right analog stick to throw punches. You just simply flick it in a direction or trace the movement of the arm as you would if they did it for real. Like for an uppercut: You trace diagnally down, and then back up, mimmicking the movement of the arm in real life. This system works very well, and makes throwing punches like hooks and haymakers a lot of fun. Holding L you can lean practically every way you can twist your body. You can't move while doing this, but there isn't a reason to. Holding R and moving the right analog stick will parry an opponent, leaving them open for a big punch. On higher difficulty levels, defense is more important than offense because you can't land a blow without getting your opponent off-guard first. You can't win just throwing punches everywhere. You need to time your attacks and make big hits only when you know you can. If your haymaker gets parried, get ready for a beating. You can throw special punches by pressing a button. These punches are powerful but slow. You can also use cheap tactics, such as a headbut or elbow. You can clinch, which is helpful in desperate situations. This game is a whole lot of fun to play, and doesn't get old unless you play on easy all the time.
Value: The main draw here is the career mode. You create a character from the surprisingly good create-a-boxer mode. You then take him from the bottom of the ranks all the way to the championship. Career mode is long, and is made more fun by the fact that you can train and build your stats up high. When you are young, your stats climb fast. But when you age, you notice your stats start to go down. When you finally get to the top and win a championtship, you actually have to defend on a certain bases. Each title has a certain amount of time you can go without defending it. If you don't defend it on time, you lose the title. There is also a multiplayer mode, which is very fun for beating the crap out of your friends. There is online, but I don't have LIVE so I can't comment on that.
Overall, this is a very fun boxing game. It really deserves to be in your collection. Even if you don't like boxing, ate least rent it. I didn't like boxing and rented it, and look what happened. Just give it a try.