Movement-wise, it's a lot better than before. Animation cycles don't appear to be as compressed, so off-the-ball movement isn't as flicker book-like as in previous iterations. Ball physics are excellent, with shots fluidly bouncing off players and goalposts with no pauses for calculations. It isn't quite as sharp in its movement as WE, but WE can feel too "digital" at times.
It's not a spectacular game of soccer, but in terms of game mechanics, from our time with it, faults were hard to find. Tackling isn't as precise as WE and two players can occasionally get caught up with the ball between them, but then real players can do that too. When you consider how many copies of this game will be sold this Christmas, you realize that this is perhaps the most important of all the versions at this time, at least for EA. And, luckily, it looks like it will make a lot of people very happy indeed.
