Football Manager 2011

This is not only the best option in the market, it is also a must-buy for football world fans.

Football Manager 2011 is probably the best episode of the series: if you are looking for a complex, easy to play, deep, modern, excellent football manager, you have found it. No contenders, one king.

This years edition focuses on streamlining team setups and tactics, as well as improving the importance of your staff. It manages to do that perfectly, and the result is another amazing game.

Despite the changes to the UI introduced by the past year episode, Football Manager 2011 remains one of the most complex game on the market, with an infinite number of different possibilities, options and hundreds of hours of gameplay. A must buy for any football fan.

Football Manager 2011 is the best management game out there. It's not only great due to its Excel-esque gameplay, but also due to the possibilities to communicate with almost everyone. It finally feels like you really are a football manager.

This year's edition delivers, bestowing everyone with THE simulator of the "soccer managerial esxperience".

The sum of FM 2011's parts is the most organic but more importantly, most believable man- and team-management experience the series has provided.

Football Manager 2011 isn't likely to draw in any new players, but it's also not going to lose any either. There are other new features, but essentially it's still that footie RPG with the addictiveness only FM and free-base cocaine can offer.

It might not reinvent the wheel, but that doesn't stop it from being the most addictive version yet. Fantastic in every sense – here's to a year of imaginary goals.

More important than all the above is the fact that Football Manager 2011 is a huge time sink that will keep you playing for hours on end for months to come.

Still brilliantly addictive for the hardcore, but a few niggles stop it being champion. [Jan 2011, p.87]

Communication improved and the add-on of agents updates its gameplay formula, and makes this the best and most complex Football Manager ever. Being a professional manager never was so close to a videogame.

A revised training system and new features such as the set-piece creation suite make this the most well-rounded and complete version of Football Manager to date.

Demands more work than its predecessors. Get it right and there's little as satisfying, but it's easier than ever to get it wrong.

Football Manager requires a certain level of commitment. If you can make that commitment, I can see that there's a rewarding experience to be had but I don't think I can do it. Almost two decades after I started playing, I'm more comfortable with Fifa and with the lighter iPhone version of Football Manager. But a whole new generation of students are about to get their minds blown.

Football Manager 2010 came with several welcome news, and this year's version only updates what was good in its predecessor. Here's interesting news that the communication with agents, players and media, some new training options and an updated game engine. Football Manager 2011 is a very complex, well crafted, engaging and time-consuming game, but if you have the predecessor, you must be a big fan to buy this.

Another year, another time it's worth your money. FM2011 really makes you believe you're the coach of a football team.

Nothing groundbreaking, but polish is ideal for those who escaped last year. [Jan 2010, p.68]

It goes without saying that, yet again, Sports Interactive has released the best football management sim ever. It's just very hard work at times.

Football manager simulation at its best. Complexity, addictive gameplay and insanely accurate rosters are here as always, the new approach is always better for newcomers. [Dec 2010]

Not one of the standout entries for the series, with just a few useful additions that never go quite far enough. Not that it tempers the game's addictive powers.