Well, I've just finished my first stint after doing an all nighter and here's my thoughts.
The UI is very easy to use-it really can't get any simpler. It's very easy to navigate, and you'll adapt to it very quickly indeed. I found the match engine/graphics to be a lot slicker, no jerkiness involved-in fact it's the best I've seen to date. I didn't see any stupid things being done like dumb backpasses, or defenders not doing what they were supposed to be doing and not bothering to tackle. The ones who hardly tackled were the ones I told to ease off on the tackling in the player instructions. Was just about flawless.
Animations are much better, and there's some nice little touches in there. Like if nothing much happening the goalie bending down and tending to his socks lol-even the corner flag blowing in the wind. Nice stuff. No glitches or anything. And when I had to change things in the match, it was noticeable very quickly which impressed me aswell. for example, my first match against Boston (I'm Stockport) we were 3-0 down. Switched to attacking from balanced (forgot to change it), went route one instruction-basically get the ball forward changed my AMC who was having a pants 2nd half and my striker and we got a goal few minutes, then with 10 mins later it was 3-2 after going to overload. Still lost 5-2 though but I made a cockup. But it's apparent instructions are acted on much quicker. And I find it much better without the sliders and have them replaced by a raft of more realistic instructions and expanded player roles.
Happy with the interaction aswell so can't complain about that-not as boring, and I like the private chats with other managers. Even the presentation during the match I like aswell-it looks a lot neater to me so I'll be sticking with the 3d graphics as usual. Basically it's a game that doesn't immediately suck you in-it does it gradually. I was planning on having only one match-but I'm typing this up during a break. Before you know a lot of time will have passed-that's how good it is. To be honest I can't find anything wrong with this at all. No glitches. No bugs. Nothing. Just an extremely enjoyable game.
This is definately the best in the series for me. Nice one SI