Fundamentally flawed, but promising game
First, the game had several unbelievably frustrating glitches that have purchasers howling--go the EA's sight and read the bulletin board info to see what I mean. One such glitch completely locks up the game, but only after you've invested about 30 hours of play into the career mode. Other glitches make it next to impossible to improve your players and one makes players "trade" places with others, meaning that your ace QB can end up with the overall qualities of your worst, without the corresponding saving grace of your worst QB improving.
These flaws fundamentally ruin the game--you simply cannot play it without tearing your hair out or throwing your controller. And it's too bad, too, because the game's concept is really cool and gameplay can be addictingly fun. I got through almost five full seasons before going back to Franchise Madden. The problem is that none of the cool concepts really works well. Motivation would be great if you could really understand it, but you can't so forget it. Calling plays is fun but you can't fully control the AI so your QB still ends up throwing an interception into triple coverage when another receiver is wide open. And despite all this, the games are easy to win, maybe even too easy.
So, the game has promise and if we see a Head Coach 2, I'll consider buying it, but this time, believe me, I'll read all the reviews I can to find out if EA fixed these maddening glitches or once again failed to live up to this game's promise.