The NCAA/Madden franchise game engine needs a complete redo.
Graphics: Pretty much the same as last year. Still no physics engine. A few new animations that are nice.
Controls: Again, pretty much unchanged and solid. No unpleasant surprises like qb vision. Players that catch passes towards the sidelines can actually turn almost on a dime and pick up yardage which is a pleasant change.
Presentation/Sound: There are actually some pregame elements you would expect from an ESPN gameday show. This years version is better than last in this department and seems realistic and good enough. A step in the right direction.
The commentary during the game, however, is virtually unchanged and this can be very boring if you play every year.
The menu sounds are your typical college fights songs like they have been doing the last few years. It gets old fast and I wish EA would include some music or chants.
Interface: Your typical fresh coat of paint the EA's marketing department puts on the game yearly. Whether or not it's practical matters not just that it's pretty. Thankfully this year's version is average for the series. I didn't find anything particularly annoying.
Gameplay: This is where the game falls flat on its face. Every year EA adjusts some of the game's sliders to solve some of the game's problems from the prior year, thereby creating new ones in its place. The problem is NCAA/Maddens engine is outdated and too simplistic. The 10+ year old game engine needs rebuilt badly.
That rant out of the way, I will say on default sliders on All-American, counters, draws, tosses, options, hell almost any running play is overpowered a la Madden 2002, especially when you run goal line or plays where the receivers are lined up on the same side of the field.
Counter to this, the passing game is horrendous this year. You can only run play action passes on first down, or expect a sack, regardless of how much you run the ball and how believable it is. As the game progresses, and your run to pass ratio reaches 80-20 it becomes much easier to pull it off, but you still get an auto-sack occasionally. You can still run a FB dive on 4th and 1 and pick up the first down with ease.
This in turn makes pass first offenses awful this year because the AI will know your receiver's routes before they run them sometimes and your interceptions will be high. As usual, the amount of dropped passes is very high, EA keeps it this way to increase difficulty. If you turn up the pass catching sliders the game becomes super easy so I play with the default and that goes ditto for the interception sliders which even if you turn them to zero will be very high for the AI. Way too many false starts happen as well, but that can be fixed with sliders.
Defense comes down to playing man coverage because the AI will destroy your zone coverage, so you have to use it sparingly. Also, blitzes work better this year, but the AI is good about getting rid of the ball the instant before you get there most of the time (The game is programmed this way). Without heavy blitzing it can be difficult to stop the run. The AI is too dumb to run as much as they should most of the time, so no worries. Fumbles occur more often, I'd say it's just right now. Again there will be times where it's impossible to stop the AI because they are programmed to be competitive and will complete stupid amounts of passes to keep the score close. The AI could be down 28-0 in the third and won't go for it on fourth down because they will only go for in the fourth. The AI will occasionally do a fake punt at mid field, but thankfully they are horrid at running it.
Special Teams are completely broken this year. Last year you could get stupid good returns, this year you may have trouble getting past the 20 against an evenly matched team. Also, kickers have ridiculous range like in past versions, so expect the AI to make 56 yard field goals with ease. I find they have trouble making kicks at an angle though and you can ice them with timeouts.
Recruiting/Progression is the other big aspect of dynasty. This years version has gotten a much needed overhaul and is this year's versions only major improvement, but also there are some rough edges. First off you will have a lot more recruits commit during the season (like the AI was always able to do). Secondly, there is a refined pitch system which is quicker because it give you random pitches to work with but gets boring quick like the old version. The great thing is A. they will tell you the exact amount of interest points you get per pitch and keep a running tally and your opponents. B. You get a certain number of pitches with each recruit instead of time (1 pitch = 10 min and you can have a max of 6 pitches per recruit per week) C. You can (finally) make promises during the season. The huge problem this year is your recruits beginning ratings are ridiculously super low. for instance, a two star recruit will be about 45-55 overall, which is about 10 below average from previous years NCAA games. This quickly leads to a complete breakdown to the majority of schools in the game by year 3 or 4.
Also, school progression advances too slow in some areas. You can win the conference championship as UAB and your bowl game, and your school's D+ prestige will increase only a +/-. This goes double for coach prestige, coach experience, and television exposure (which is stupid hard to raise).
Overall, NCAA has broken gameplay, but a decent presentation and good graphics, so overall I give the game a 5/10. Thanks for reading.