While my offense has been on fire, I'm pleasantly surprised at how well my defense is doing. I gave up 28 in my first game, 21 in the second, 14 in the 3rd, and then 7 in my last one, all against increasingly better opponents. I had one guy disconnect on me who had 0 early in the 3rd and then of course the douche who IP flooded me who had 7 midway through the 2nd.

The most recent guy ran an offense that would've easily scored 40 on me in last year's Madden(Strong Close...what a *and I hate this word* cheesy formation) and I had little problem completely shutting him down. He was even using the Chiefs, which was everyone's favorite team to roll with when they planned on abusing Strong Close. I can't get any pressure whatsoever, but my run D has been amazing and I've got several really nice coverage plays that people seem to have trouble finding open receivers against.

Anyway, after 6 online games and several hours messing around in practice, I'm still standing by my initial statement. From a game play standpoint, Madden '13 is far ahead of any other EA football game released this generation. It's got that balance that I'm always talking about. For the first time in a long time, people are having to run legitimate defenses and they're having to attempt to read defenses. I've enjoyed every second of it so far.