I bought FIFA 18 during the sale due to temptation too, and I am very far from impressed. PES the past couple years has been fantastic (Unless ML is important to you, in that case you indeed made the right choice in not purchasing) but as good as the gameplay is, it isn't very deep or polished in any other aspect and therefore gets stale after a while. I hadn't played FIFA in a long while so I was kinda interested to see how it was. FIFA is still the polar opposite of PES in my opinion; a good amount of modes to choose from, a better career mode and all around more polished, but the gameplay is very stale and boring. played 12 matches and they all felt exactly the same and uneventful, most ending 0-0 or 1-0 with barely any shots. Even with it being (slightly) graphically superior to PES, it looked much less realistic and was much less fun. I'll play around with it a little more, but at this point I am probably going back to PES 18 soon, and I wish I would've saved my $25. PES is definitely worth it in my opinion at $20, even if you are put off by the underwhelming ML. I bought it at $45 on my PC and $25 on PS4 and am happy with both purchases. I usually just have fun playing one-off league seasons and seeing how good I can do with each team, so ML being somewhat poor doesn't phase me. Can't really go wrong with PES at $20 in my opinion.

That's a good perspective. I decided to just play MyClub on PES Lite for now but the sale is still going so I might pick up full PES. Playing 1 season with a different team like you do is probably what I'll do for ML. It just annoys me when retired players return through the youth squad so it kills all immersion for me when you plat multiple seasons.