[Americas Team]

Had a chance to play a few games. Played against the cpu on All Pro.

Tackling- Tackling is improved but I feel like it's over hyped. The new pile on tackles don't trigger very often and when they do many times it's just a defender putting his shoulder down instead of wrapping up. At times they look good. But imo it doesn't happen often enough, feels tacked on.

Pass blocking/rushing- another over hyped feature. It is improved, the pass rush is stronger but too often pass rushers come in freely unengaged resulting in insta sacks. Still too many dice role super wins/loss scenarios. They need to figure out how to create pressure while pass rushers are still engaged with blockers more consistently. Imo the pass rush is just right, I hope they don't tone it down, offensive lineman ratings matter!

Passing - The normal skill based passing doesn't seem much different than the typical lead passing that's been in the game forever.
But Free Form Passing is a game changer, you can basically throw the ball where you want too, you can throw receiver's open & where only they can get it. Im still learning the passing, I hope the full game has a tutorial.

Running- rushing feels good. 360 Cuts is legit, I made some nasty cut backs using it. But it should only be used in some scenarios, not all the time. The button smash to break out of tackles is legit too, I like that it doesn't lock you into a canned animation, it's implemented better than when it was in the game years ago.

Pass Defense - pass defense is good for the most part, still some DB movement wonkyness at times in man to man when the receiver reaches the top of their route. For example, one time Travon Diggs was in his back peddle, the receiver does a out route, instead of jumping the out route (Diggs still in back peddle looking at the QB) he does a 360 turn for some reason allowing the receiver to be open for the catch. I did notice that a lot of the ratings were off. Diggs only rated like a 72.
Also, the DB one hand ball knock down animation triggers too much. Even in situations where it should be a pick attempt.

Presentation- pretty much the same as 22, some slight additions. Still those immersion breaking wipes for timeouts, 2min warning, end of quarter. I'd like to see those wipes replaced with coaches or refs signaling timeouts, etc, keeping you on the field.
Still no or very little subtle teammate celebrations like high fives, hand shakes, and pats on the back or butt.

Graphics- the smaller shoulder pads is the biggest difference so far imo but I like it.

So far I'm having fun with Madden 23 but it's not anything spectacular, it's still Madden. An updated version of Madden 22.