It's glitchy. You'll get frustrated, so purchase at your own risk.
I do like some things about the game, so let me get those down:
1) Collinsworth is great.
2) Rain and snow games--realistic and pretty fun
3) new tackling and catching animations, some really good
4) I like rewind--it compensates for the game doing weird stuff, like saying your receiver was out of bounds on that long touchdown when he wasn't.
But here are some things wrong with the game:
1) It's glitchy. It freezes in Franchise mode. Read other reviews and you'll see the same complaint. This should NEVER happen and the fact it does says something is wrong at EA.
2) It's glitchy some more! It freezes on training drills. In Franchise mode you have to train players week by week and that's the only way they really improve their overall rating. And if you can't get them to improve, because the drills freeze often, you are toast. I play as the Broncos and unless you do the training drills Cutler never improves, no matter how many touchdowns he throws or that his QB rating is over 150. This problem could lead to destroyed controllers because that's how mad you'll be. You can still do training drills, but you'll have to sim them--over, and over, and over--to get the training points. Sad, too, because I'm really good at the drills but in sim mode you often have to set the level lower, to say All-Pro (which yields fewer training points) in order not to re-sim 20 times for it to work. You'll still sim 10 times, though, to get a few sad training points for one guy. Hey, EA, we don't want to sim for an hour to get to the next game. We actually want to play games!
3) The new features aren't so great, or are weird. Case in point: Madden IQ. The holographic starting screen rates your abilities but causes more problems than it is worth. The offensive drills are easy, so I scored up in All-Madden. This meant the game automatically sets the AI defense on All-Madden. But WAIT. I play as the Broncos and in fact their offensive line stinks and their HB's have poor awareness and I couldn't run at all and got sacked a LOT. So, what good does it do to be a hologram to do a drill when you don't play as a hologram during games? Did anyone at EA think this through?
Same point. The holographic defensive drills are too hard. Even experienced players may have a low Madden IQ there, meaning the game will set the AI offensive team as REALLY bad--you'll get three or four picks a game and lots of sacks, which might seem great except that if you change the settings to say, All-Pro, you'll once again be toast.
4) some animations look bad, such as when a guy breaks into the open and runs all out toward the endzone. Totally unrealistic looking.
5) The backtrack feature is a waste because if you screw up and throw an interception you already know what you did wrong. We don't need backtrack to show us. Further, the coverage changes after rewind, so don't try throwing to the receiver Collinsworth said was open, because he won't be after the rewind.
6) Still a really bad animation after the Super Bowl win. It was better two versions ago--at least we got to see bad confetti and fireworks. Even the really bad Gatorade bath was better than what you see now.
7) Poor offseason stuff in Franchise mode. For example, you can upgrade your stadium, but can't find its rating to see how bad off it is.
I don't understand what EA thinks we want. Each new year they throw in useless or poorly thought-through features, but they jack up the basic game. EA, we want a game that works! Forget holographs and make a game that doesn't freeze!