I agree about Madden 11. Though people were disappointed with the feature set, I felt like the quality of the gameplay was overlooked. They had the biggest improvement gameplay wise on this generation. Locomotion was a game changer. However, to me, 2k5 is still a quality game that has value to play because of its gameplay, and the fact that Madden took 6 years to put out a product that really closed the gap as you said really says something. That's why I think it should also get mention. However, I agree about 09 The Show (one of my favorites, even though I am now playing 10 and 11 in a few months) and NHL 10 was great as well.