Having had nothing to do all morning, I ended up playing the demo for a couple of hours. Will post a run down of my thoughts and impressions etc....
The 3D match engine seems to have been improved nicely, not that it will interest everyone (I myself have scarcely used it before) but it now runs a lot more fluidly and just looks better and generally resembles real football a lot better than it used to. Not sure if this is enough of a draw to actually make me use it...we'll see I guess.
Thew new features are quite cool, I particularly like how you can now train particular tactics as part of preperation for specific opposition. Adds a certain sense of realism, and it seems to work quite well. Tactics in general being an overhaul is also nice, makes the game a bit more tricky and complicated, but if you get it right then it seems to work a treat. Seems like this is an area of the game that you really need to pay attention to, attempting to just hide behind players with great stats doesn't seem to work well anymore
Not that it worked in the last few versions either mind you, but it seems like you have to be even more on the ball now.
The whole negotiation process with agents and so on is a nice touch in a sense, but I don't really think it adds a lot to the game. I get fed up with my inbox filling up with emails from agents trying to get me to bid for their player (though you can filter this so you only get the offers for really top players coming through etc...) The contract negotiation involvment of the agents is alright, but it just seems like it makes it more simplistic rather than in any way more substantial. Insofar that if your offer is not good enough then it will be rejected immediately and you can then immediately submit a new offer and so on... The fact that some Agents demand ridiculous wages does mean you have to remain quite savvy I suppose, and is quite fun.
Other small improvements that I have noticed is the improvement in the valuation of players. It seems that most players are very realistically valued and only the really top top players like Messi etc... have values near £30m. The general AI of the other teams/managers seems to be better as well, you always see the big sides attempting to buy the best young players aged about 16 and 17 and focusing on youth development rather than just going for broke with no eye on the future (not sure what this was like in the last version though tbh, I didn't play the 2010 edition). Similarly player ratings also seem to have been made a lot more sensible too. No longer are teams like Arsenal incredibly fantastic in every position, which was something that really got my goat in previous versions. It seemed to me that in older games it was very easy to pick up players who were really top drawer in any position, it seems that the amount of players who are genuinely top drawer has been given to a very select few, quite realisitically I would say. It also makes playing as Arsenal a challenge, which is nice (on the demo they only get to start with £15m budget too)
But yeah, all in all, seems pretty positive. Will continue to play the demo throughout the week until the full version (hopefully) shows up on friday.