With hopelessly broken AI and horrifyingly bad online play, EA's latest foray into college hoops is a flop.
Gameplay:
The most important aspect of any sports video game is how closely the game mirrors its real-life equivalent. The motion offense system that EA introduced into this year's game was a good idea; after all, virtually every college basketball program in the United States runs a motion offense. Sadly, this system is horribly broken as players seem to forget what they are doing whenever they're about to achieve something approaching realism. For example, a player running an offensive set might be cutting directly to the basket, unguarded and unabated. Naturally, you'll feed the ball to this player for an easy lay-up or slam dunk, right? Wrong! As soon as you pass the ball, the player who WAS proceeding straight to the basket either stops cutting to the basket or starts sprinting in another direction. EA can't honestly market this game as featuring a "motion offense" if it's this stagnant. The AI (on "your" team and your AI opponent's team) is perfectly aware of where the ball is *located* whenever it's in a player's hands, but on passing plays etc., the AI has absolutely no idea where the ball is located or where it is going.
Multiplayer:
Multiplayer lags so badly that it is almost impossible to shoot more than 25%. It is common for an online game to feature less than 10 made field goals. With the horrible lag (I play on a T3 connection and experienced no such lag on NCAA Basketball 09), it's downright impossible to pass the ball effectively or run offensive sets online.
Sound:
Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery are the two most obnoxious and least intelligent basketball announcers on television. If you think adding them to the game has contributed something, you need to get your head examined.
Graphics:
This year's graphics are identical to last year's graphics, except you can choose to have your games broadcast with CBS's screen sets instead of ESPN's.