For me, gameplay is the most crucial part of any sports game. A good chunk of what's changed this year is the fact that everything's more accessible (a good thing) and in many ways a lot easier. One of the best additions, the setup play, also makes it more likely you'll win. Or at least improves your ability to easily strategize your play calling. Setup plays are nothing new to football games. You run a bunch, get the corners and linebackers to creep in, then call play action and burn their asses. The new setup play function in NCAA Football 10 makes it all transparent. You'll see from the play select menu which plays are linked (so you know which running play is executed to look identical to which play action passes). And as you successfully perform a play, a percentage appears on its linked counterparts. This is how "setup" the defense has become due to your previous plays. It's the likelihood they'll bite on play action (or think a draw play is going to be a pass, etc). It's a nice little feature many might ignore, but it's this kind of transparency that helps make play calling more entertaining.
One thing I wonder, though, is why there isn't a setup play for defense. As defenses surely try to confuse quarterbacks so they can't tell when the linebackers will blitz or if they're using man or zone coverage. Perhaps that's coming next year.
There are some other improvements to the gameplay. In particular, there's a whole new set of animations, which help give a better feel to the game. There's more gridiron realism this time around, even if the overall visuals haven't changed much since last year. A lot of the gameplay changes are subtle -- the AI adapts to your play style, pursuit angles are better, you can actually see the pocket now. It's certainly a more refined game than NCAA Football 09 and one of EA's better football offerings on this generation of consoles. At this point you're probably looking at the score for this year and last year and scratching your head. Well, keep in mind that it's two different reviewers and I didn't hold last year's NCAA Football in such high regard.
Unfortunately, something that hasn't changed is the presence of a few bugs. I've seen middle linebackers stuck jittering back and forth like epileptics, for example. When I had the game randomize names for every player, I ended up with a cornerback named 1090 (his parents' fave radio station?) and a tackle named XXXXX. I should mention that my entire NCAA Football 10 experience was on a retail version of the game, so barring a title update at launch, these types of issues still exist. Game bugs are like Russian Roulette. I may have been the unlucky sap to pull the trigger when the chamber was loaded. You might be luckier.
There is one other major gameplay change this year, which can't be ignored. This year, EA has included a "win" button on defense. Hold it down and your defender takes proper position (even sticks to his receiver like peanut butter to a bear's ass). And if the man he's covering blocks instead of running a route, the win button knows to attack the running back. Another option is Family Play, which simplifies offense and defense removing the complicated buttons and boiling it all down to as single button to do just about everything. Yes, this happens to also be the win button from defense. If you still can't win (which I feel should be virtually impossible at this point), there are plenty of micro-transactions for all facets of the game that can quickly give you the edge needed to destroy your computer opponent.
