Too arcade-ish; It's far from realistic.
What I liked about this game is the franchise mode. This is actually fun. I personally enjoy managing the team. The game play is entertaining when my defense is on fire. There are a considerable amount of customizations for creating players and teams which is a huge plus for me.
What I had mixed feelings about is Fight for the fumble. Very cool feature, but it's really hard to actually recover a fumble, and the excessive button-mashing required to win a fumble takes it's toll on the controller. The soundtrack has a few cool tracks (mainly Korn and S.O.A.D.), but I didn't really like it overall. The new injury system was a relief, but it still has work.
And for my favorite parts, what I can't stand about this game. The first thing that stands out to me is that the run-game is extremely under-rated and unrealistic with almost *ZERO* run-blocking (even on Pro difficulty), computer's O-line is dominant (offering as much as 12 seconds in the pocket), and the hit-stick (as usual) is all flashy, with no real substance. The pass game is good, but defending it on the other hand is impossible when the CPU is using a high-caliber QB. As a 2k5 fan, I found some of the features a total b****-slap in the face, such as the chain-gang measuring the ball, mainly because these features were originally in the 2K5 game and the stolen features in madden are poorly implemented. The running animation bugs me, and overall there are few animations and it gets boring fast. There are still annoying glitches too such as the ball sliding into the opponent's hands in mid-air, or the defensive AI not covering their man in man coverage, especially in a trips formation and a receiver does a an in/out or a slant route. The superstar mode is watered down way too much, and ultimately a waste of time for me. And finally "The Extra Point" is far from complete. The speech is very rough and it sticks too closely to a formula making it dull and tedious. The half-time and post game shows suffer the same weaknesses, and the worst part is that you can't skip the whole thing! You can skip one part at a time, but then you have to wait until the next segment loads before you can skip it.
At first I thought this game was actually going to be good because of the features it boasted, (especially the pro-tak), but it was BS... One extreme example was in the Pro-Bowl of my second year in my franchise: Brees passed the ball to Adrian Peterson in the middle after a hitch route. When Peterson turns around, I have 4 guys on him: a created 250lb linebacker with maxed (99) tackling and strength, Haloti Ngata, Troy Polamalu, and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, all were tackling Peterson at the same time. Peterson didn't have any help (not linemen pushing him forward or anything)... Get this: Not only did he break all four of them, but out-ran the remainder of my defense for a 39 yard touchdown... WITHOUT FUMBLING THE BALL!!!! It's crap like this (and all the other crap mentioned in the paragraph) that totally ruin this game.
This game is a sorry excuse for a football game as it's far (far) away from achieving anything close to realism. Every Madden so far (I haven't tested Madden 11 yet) can't hold a candle to 2K5 in realism which is just plain sad on EA's part and it's a disgrace on Madden's name. This maybe a good game for a casual gamer or casual football fan. But for the die-hard fans, this game is mostly frustration with a few pockets of fun, which makes this game worth the bargain bin. I'm actually still a little pissed I spent $20 on this... I wished I only spent $5-$10.