Good ideas, poor execution. The devil is in the (many, many) details.
With that in mind, you have to give them credit. This is an ambitious outing as far as hockey video games go. In effect, it's as if they went double or nothing with adding new features, rather than playing it safe and making a carbon-copy of last year. It results in an ambitious, if at times a little overwhelming, product.
Let's start with what this game does well.
Everything that made NHL 09 great returns in this latest installment. Be a Pro introduces the option of playing in a "Prospects All-Star" game, before your pro becomes a commodity in the draft. The quality of your performance in this game determines your draft ranking, and thus where you're headed. While having just one game to prove yourself might be a lot of pressure, actually being drafted adds a sense of realism to the game mode that was lacking last year.
Choosing to play as a goalie in a Be a Pro mode, however, can require some tweaking of the game options to ensure you have any hope of escaping the AHL. On default settings, you might only ever face three shots - and two of them will be impossible to stop. This can have a big impact on your stats early on, rendering you doomed to a dismal minor league career.
Somewhat disappointing about Be a Pro, however, are the new "unlockables". Either by performing any number of increasingly challenging tasks, or - more conveniently - by shilling out money in the form of Microsoft Points, a player can give his stats an immediate and powerful boost in the form of rather gawdy looking new equipment. Most especially for goalies, it gets pretty ugly. However what's really disappointing is these boosts can only be used with the aforementioned ridiculous looking gear, rather than the recognizable brands and designs in the game. It definitely brings the game's realism and maturity level down a notch. Most disappointing though is the ability to buy your way to the top with this gear, rather than having to earn it.
The only place this new equipment designs make sense is for goalie helmets, and even then, only a third of the new helmets are of realistic shape - the rest being "vintage" Jason-style masks. Further, with all this effort to give the user the ability to customize their player's appearance, the "Create-a-Team" mode continues to desperately lack any real customization options. Your team's name and location must be chosen from an approved list, and the available logos for your team range from childishly drawn to somewhat unrecognizable designs. I'm still not sure why EA bothers with this.
Board-play, life many of the game's new features, sounds good in theory. In practice it can take a bit of getting used to. Somewhat frustrating is that the button that will pin a player to the boards is also used for instigating fights. You might often find yourself in a fight while attempting to use this new feature, or, more frustratingly, winding up on the penalty kill for instigating. Since being released, game updates have attempted to prevent "magnet" board-play, where a player on defense can seemingly suck a player into the boards from some distance away. However I find it easy to end up slipping out of pinning a player against the boards, despite the fact that he will continue to press himself against them. It's all a bit of a logistical nightmare, though - it must be said - it does give the player yet another tool for shutting down the opponent's opportunities and taking back control of the play from a red hot offense.
Fighting itself is much improved and is now from a first-person perspective, making each and every punch up close and personal. While against the AI fighting takes a bit of strategy, with friends it can turn in to a "who-can-throw-the-most-punches-the-fastest" slug fest - with some fights lasting only a few seconds.
While your teammates' AI continues to improve, you may still find them be idly content to give up possession of the puck rather than chase it down from time to time, or crowding into you as you try to take the zone, resulting in an offside. However their ability to grasp the puck or an errant pass has significantly improved from last year, though the puck will sometimes behaves more like a tennis ball, bouncing from stick to stick while players compete for possession. With poke checks and stick lifts at your disposal, you'll find yourself in a lot more battles for the puck in the neutral zone.
The biggest new feature this year, however, is undoubtedly Be a GM. With the arrival of Brian Burke to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization, and given this mode's emphasis on "toughness" (i.e. pugnacity, belligerence, and such) I think we can rest assured that this game is developed by Leafs fans.
Either that, or this is meant as a mockery of them, because the Brian-Burke-esqe style encouraged in this mode doesn't necessarily make it enjoyable, or your team any harder to play against. I don't know if I should count that towards the game's realism - the Leafs are dead last in the East this year for all their attempts at pursuing this style of play. It would be ignorable if the game didn't punish you for choosing not to load up your team with tough guys and enforcers that only end up as dead weight, since every and any player will jump into a fight at a moment's notice at your command - whether or not they're fighters.
With the huge array of new features to what was once "Dynasty" mode, Be a GM is, unfortunately, a little bloated. While I would usually contend that more depth in a feature is usually worth it, there are some factors that make this mode a disappointment.
First, with all the different variables at play, and the many, many screens you have to consult, trading requires the patience of Job. With the new trading block system, each team has a long list of excuses why they think any offer you make them is garbage - and they'll let you know about it. The simple truth is that you'll find yourself flipping back and forth between the somewhat difficult to understand "trading block page" - a confusing series of sliders indicating what they're looking for and what they're willing to give away (e.g. veterans, wingers, goalies, etc.), the trade negotiation screen itself, and a player's stats page, only after hours of research discover that what you considered a perfectly fair offer is "insulting".
For the record, on the topic of Brian Burke, good luck getting Phaneuf to Toronto - or for that matter, any high-value player. Worse, trying to feel out what then might be acceptable by re-proposing a modified deal - like you would in an actual negotiation, where there'd be a bit more back and forth rather than a series of flat out rejections - risks damaging your reputation with that team, to the point where they will suddenly consider you a "rival" for having pestered them. Unfortunately this process is a must if you have any hope of building up a solid top six. Expect to be the most hated GM in the league if you plan on making a number of trades. The AI will give you little assistance in the process, instead choosing to quietly resent you.
Ultimately, this type of system would work if you had all the necessary information in front of you while in the trade negotiation screen - rather than tediously having to go back and forth, trying to remember what each of the 29 other NHL franchises are looking for from a detailed list of possible variables. While the realities of the NHL themselves making trading difficult, the added level of complexity simply makes trading far too tedious a process to be worth the trouble.
Secondly, however, is the endless maze of pages regarding your achievements and stats as a GM. Your actions build up "GM points", which can be used to improve the competency of your team's staff. Unfortunately this page is buried somewhere far in the back of a long list of details about your team - with emphasis on your team's toughness. Rounding out your roster with players of every type is encouraged, though doing so might cramp your style of play. As I've mentioned, not every type is worth having - most especially the new "tough guy" role.