The physics engine is really good. The game play feels much more fluid. It is not perfect but it is so much better than previous versions of Madden using this generations hardware.

That said there are some major features missing or moved. No fantasy draft. No co-op play in offline career mode. No created players in offline or online career mode. No NCAA draft import.

Rent or borrow this Madden before you buy it to make sure it has the features you want. Personally I will be selling or trading this one in. Next year Madden is no longer and automatic buy. I will wait until I read about it and rent or borrow it. EA stole my money this year.… Expand

Buyer Beware! If you're like me and play the offline franchise mode, then you are in for a enormous disappointment. The Franchise mode has been 'watered down' into something called Connected Careers. I won't need to explain further except: 1) No custom playbooks 2) No fantasy drafts 3) NO CUSTOM ROSTERS 4) No ability to upload NCAA rosters In retrospect, I should have done my research before wasting time and money. I've been playing Madden on and off for the last 8 years and this reiteration is a MONUMENTAL failure.… Expand

The new physics engine is laughably bad at times and it's the only new feature to this game, the rest is a fresh coat of paint or a reorganized menu system. I been buying madden religiously since 2003 and it's the first time I honestly feel ripped off. They took out franchise mode and fantasy draft and a lot more in favor of connected careers which is honestly my player mode with a coach/player option. In its current condition this game feels like a beta at best. Sorry EA worst madden I honestly ever played.… Expand

no fantasy draft, no create a team, no decent create a player. user interface is TERRIBLE, customisation is limited. wanna change defensive scheme 3 years into your franchise? NOPE, tough luck, you chose at the start and are stuck with it. there are no minigames, no create a play, no create a playbook, no practice mode. this is a game with its heart ripped out, swapped for a feed of fake tweets, il take the real in game depth over that **** and an advert for papa johns any day.… Expand

I was really looking forward to this years Madden. I wish I had waited and read the reviews that Users have posted so I would NOT have bought this game. Yes the game play and new physics engn are very good but everything else is junk. No franchise mode, no co-op but in play now mode, and no fantasy draft all make me want to trade this game in the first chance I get.

The decision making that went into this game is absolutely egregious. The complete crap that they put into this game in place of franchise mode utterly destroys this entire game. I'm supposed to enjoy a franchise mode where I can't edit my roster in any way? I can't even move a corner to safety even if his position he is playing in the NFL is safety? I'm returning it now, and to be honest I'm angry I even had to waste my time driving to the store to buy this.… Expand

A solid 4 out of 10. Most of EA's efforts were in the social gaming aspects, and it shows. It's a good game to play against friends online with the pre-existing teams, the comic value is priceless (a lot of 'I didn't know a neck could bend that way, without the guy being paralyzed' moments)...Awful game if you like the old franchise mode, as they did away with it. Now you can play the career mode as the coach, and make only football decisions. The menu system is a bit clumsy. For example, rosters are under personnel, but salaries are listed under strategy menu. In short they got a lot of the little things wrong...which makes getting around unnecessarily complex. My guess is they'll fix them in Madden 14. My suggestion is burrow the game or rent it before buying it.… Expand

I have bought Madden day 1 (without reading any reviewspreviewsetc) for over 10 years straight so imagine my suprise when I get this years verison only to learn that EA in their infinite wisdom has COMPLETELY gutted the game of all the features that the real diehard Madden fans have always had and loved over the years. My main complaint is the NO FANTASY DRAFT option which has caused my online league that I played in with 15 other guys from collegehigh school to die. Who's genius idea, when fantasy football is at the all time high of it's popularity to take this option out of Madden!? EA is the worst run company in the world, they either do not get or do not care in the least what their consumers want out of their games. All they care about doing is slapping a big name on a title, put it out on the shelves and pound their checks.

I will never blindly (probably never again period) buy another one of their Madden games...and after this and Mass Effect3, Dragon Age 2, on and on I may never buy another EA Game again out of principal.… Expand

As a business decision taking out the ability to play franchise with upwards of 32 of your closes friends offline makes sense, it means 31 of your friends would need to purchase there own copy of the game. If even one other person who would normally play your copy buys a new one EA profits where they wouldn't have profited before. Kudos to EA for there usually slap in the face business ethics. Connected careers has some nice ideas in it. The xp system could grow into something amazing. Unfortunately for every nifty idea EA put into the mode your going to find about 3 major bugs or glitches to go with, examples would be multiple jersey numbers, stats recorded incorrectly, sim games not simming properly, same players signing with same teams over and over again etc... No editing or fantasy draft are very important loses to me and hurt my personal replay value with the game. Being these features have been a standard part of all sports games I was shocked by there absence. I'm sure they will be brought back as a new feature within a couple of years which EA is notorious for doing. The new engine is refreshing for the Madden franchise. Unfortunately it is full of bugs. It brings back memories of the football game Backbreaker with clunky and strange happenings on every play, limbs bending the wrong way, players falling down for no reason, etc... it also seems to cause more glitches then in your normal Madden game. Too many for me to believe a patch will clean up the wonky gameplay. It does make me very happy to see EA take some chances with madden unfortunately its 1 step forward, 3 steps back, which should be EA's motto by now. A couple more things I believe consumers should be aware of before purchase, EA's gameface will cause this game to freeze up, and since I purchased the game I have been disconnected from the EA servers a whooping six times. My internet connection is not the problem. If your going to force offline gamers to play online in hopes of selling more games then at least have servers that can be counted on. Nothing worse than having to start a solo connected careers(franchise) game over because you lost connectivity to the EA servers. This game itself deserves better than the zero I'm giving it. However not much better.… Expand

If you enjoy playing online with limited customability options, and rarely play offline, this game was made for you. If you liked having more control of your rosters, drafting, Franchise and play more offline than online then EA has basically said to heck with you. Makes perfect sense when you think about it. The internet has hurt the recording industry. Nobody buys CD's anymore. The same thing is starting to happen to the Movie/DVD industry. Why buy it when you can just download it. So EA has adopted the 'join 'em before they beat us" mentality. Everybody keeps saying "where EA is going" with what they've done with Madden 13. All I can say is for us Casual/Offline gamers the writing is on the wall. I'll be returning mine this Tuesday!… Expand

this game gets a big fat ZERO from me, simply because this is the first year my sons and i cannot compete with, or against, each other in offline franchise mode. that's it. period. i remember the days when we could play splitscreen in nascar and they took that away. i never purchased another nascar game. if EA doesn't bring back offline franchise for Madden... i'll never purchase it again, either. sad... since i've purchased it every year since its inception.… Expand

This seems like a rebuilding year for Madden, they're trying out some new things with this old storied franchise. Somethings work, but there is plenty here that doesn't. It's a case of 2 yards forward and then 8 yards back. The Good: Madden looks as good as always, however the introduction of the Infinity Engine really brings some realism on the field, you'll rarely ever seen the pre-done tackle animations anymore as hits and other things look more like their real live counterparts. There are a few cases of video game physics with guys heads and limbs moving in ways they aren't supposed to but that's bound to happen. Connected Career mode is the new Franchise/Superstar Mode and it's a fairly fun experience that can keep you playing for a long time. There is a ton of replay value there, however it's hampered by a couple of things/ On the field Psychic DBs and LBs are gone and defenders really have to play on the ball with the new passing and ball hawking systems. So if a Defender isn't looking at the ball while it's in the air they won't magically instantly turn and intercept it, same goes for Wideouts. New commentators are in this year, so you won't have to hear Gus Johnson over exaggerate a play or Cris Collonsworth say...well anything. My ear holes welcome to the new commentators though of course after a few games they will grow to be repetitive, they should take a cue from NBA 2ks commentating style and have a more broadcast type commentary. The Bad: Like with all Maddens they inject some things and then take some things out for little to no reason. The following key features have been removed from Madden. -You can no longer edit players in Franchise/Superstar mode(Which I'll now call called Connected Careers or CCM) this means you cannot take costume rosters into these modes at all. You can't even edit numbers or equipment used in these modes. -You can't import your NCAA Draft Class, Imported Draft classes are poorly done in Madden yes, but I still enjoyed watching my college players evolve in the big leagues, that is no longer at all possible. -You can't do Offline CCM with more than 1 person. Were you like me and had a group of Madden Heads participate in your franchises? Welp , unless everyone you play Madden with has their own copy and access to the internet that is no longer possible. This is a HUGE HUGE mistake, I know lots of developers seem to think couch play is dead, but it is still very much alive and the fact they took this out of this edition of Madden is a HUGE mistake. -I cannot stress enough how stupid it is that you can't control more than one team/player in CCM I really can't. -No Fantasy Draft, you heard me. The Ugly: After years of demands, Madden finally has Gameface, which will put your actual face onto a player so you won't have to choose from one of the random horrible looking heads. However your mileage with Game face will vary, you have to have excellent lighting and an excellent camera to get the perfect picture, too bright or dark and your skin tone will be way off and depending on the hairstyle you choose your hair may end up terrible for example, you can't go bald or have a shaved head. You'll get saddled with a horrendous haircut that clips through your head. Your eyes mostly likely will come how incredibly weird. Most of your facial hair will go unrecognized, and you just may end up looking completely different. And unlike the World Cup/FiFA games you can only have one Game face in use at a time, where as in World Cup you could sort of cheat the system and have multiple Game faces But of course that doesn't matter because outside of Play Now mode you can't even use multiple created players. Speaking of that, in CCM unless your position is in demand on your favorite team and not filled by a superstar be prepared to ride the pine for a number of years. You get the most XP to raise your players stats when you get into actual regular season games, though your rating my drop if you don't fit the teams offensive scheme and if you're hoping to start as a West Coast QB in say, Green Bay you can just forget that. You'll never see a single down in a regular season game. The only other alternative is Practice, and practice is NOT FUN. It isBOOOOOORING, it has always been BOOOORING. You know what was fun that they took away? Camp Drills. They should bring those back, again look at NBA 2ks drills. The Verdict: Madden 13 does a few things right and a number of things horrendously wrong. All the fun has been sucked out of their season type modes and without those you're stuck with just playing exhibition games and thats only fun for so long. Save your money for next years Madden if they get that right, or something else. Hell go buy a real football, you're bound to have more fun with that than this iteration of Madden.… Expand

I am suffering a major case of buyers remorse. after reading the reviews and playing the demo for this game i was excited. my friend and i get together every Saturday and play franchise mode together. we like to take the lowly lions and turn them into Superbowl champs. we start buy picking frank gore in the fantasy draft then a QB, last year it was Vick followed by Randy Moss. this year i find out the only way to play coop is in play now. the game is useless to me and my friend. i am returning it and if we want to play football we'll just play the demo. Why the major reviewers didn't mention the loss of fantasy draft or coop i don't know, but I'll never buy an EA game again without reading the user reviews first.… Expand

What a bummer. Has anyone else tried the career mode yet? I freeze up at least once every week in the off season and NO GAME HAS EVER FROZEN MY SYSTEM BEFORE!!! There is no excuse for such badly written code. Game play is challenging, which would be nice if I could put a team together, but with no fantasy draft and constant freezes in the off-season this is a waste of freaking time. I guess I'll play with the Pats a few times before I sell this at a second hand store. Maybe they will trade me for an older Madden game.… Expand

EA gets a 0 for pulling the Fantasy Draft option and not telling consumers in advance. Totally unacceptable for a company to pull a long-time feature with no warning.

This review contains spoilers. Let me preface this amateur review by saying that I am not a huge fan of "online" gaming. I enjoy nestling into the couch and getting cozy with a game--by myself. To me, there is just something about having a solo, individual connection with a game that I cannot find with games catered more towards online gamers...That said, Madden NFL 13 was a ridiculous waste of time (!!!), and as I've said, year after year, ESPN NFL 2K5 was the last great football game.
I really want to like Madden. Although it is the only NFL game we can buy, it is still nice to have a new football game every year. Speaking strictly to the gameplay, EA Sports has a stuck with a formula that works, and the urge to break down and buy it come August of every year somehow takes over. You would think that it would behoove EA spend some its serious Madden revenue to make drastic improvements to the gameplay (new tackling animations, a more realistic sideline, thorough commentary, adjusting age-old difficulty settings to something more innovative, etc), but instead, they have chosen to get rid of the things which solo gamers love--Franchise Mode, create-a-player, Fantasy Draft with created players before franchise mode--and replaced it with a collection of pointless mediums that makes the entire Madden endeavor a fruitless one. I traded the game into GameStop after just 5 days of buying it. The sole reason as to why I usually end up breaking down each year and buying Madden was because I loved to create my own NFL, with my customized players and freedom to what I will with my own custom team. That's all gone!
I understand online gaming. Playing with other can be fun, especially when you can do it with some stranger halfway across the globe. But I really don't care about gaming with someone in Bangkok. Slowly but surely, EA is turning Madden into something which resembles Call of Duty, when it should resemble the ultimate NFL simulation. I can only hope and pray that EA and the NFL do not broker a new, multi-year exclusivity contract. Simply put, an alternative is needed. While some people love what Madden is becoming, many others dry heave.… Collapse

Madden 13 is a disgrace to the madden frachise, it is by far and away the most unrealistic madden game i have ever played. It is way to easy to get an onside kick, it seems like you can get an onside kick atleast 85% of the time. and the game no longer tells you when your oppenent is doing an onside kick. THIS GAME SUCKS, IF YOU HAVE NOT BOUGHT IT YET SAVE YOURSELF SOME MONEY AND DONT!!!!