With Madden being a more defensively focused game this year, it appears the developers are trying to fix one big part of what has made the game feel stale to many the past few years on the field. Will the additions on the defensive half of the ball lead to more fun or will Madden still feel stale in your non-hands on opinions?

Matthew Coe: No. All of the announced additions on defense have fallen flat for me. Part of that is the reality that in past Madden games, marketed features didn't work properly. Another part of that is that so many current features don't function properly (penalties, anyone?). In no way do I think that adding a defensive camera is a game changer. We had player lock in the NCAA Football series and the view here seems to be similar. The new disengage moves for defensive linemen seem likely to be overpowered out of the box and exploitable online. And while this may seem like a petty complaint, I'm worried that the moves will be too "gamey" and might result in individual player ratings mattering less in the trenches. The tackling cone amuses me to be honest, and seems to be a feature designed with new players in mind, which is fine, I'm just glad that I can turn the visual cone off. Finally, we don't really have any details about the new coverage improvements or specifics about Real AI 2.0. I'm a bit encouraged that they brought in real NFL players and coaches to help with these two features, but I wonder if any of that will translate to Madden's defensive gameplay.

Count me as a skeptic until we see real 11-on-11 gameplay of Madden NFL 15 in a single player vs CPU environment.

Jayson Young: No. The new defensive mechanics that were announced today may help the one defender who's being user-controlled, but what about the 10 other defenders on the field?

Will those computer-controlled defenders still give up huge gains by taking illogical pursuit angles? Will they continue to sit in their tiny zone circles, even when no offensive threats are near the area they are "covering"?

Will man coverage still be beaten by basic curl and out routes, regardless of the wide receiver/defensive back matchup? Will the secondary regularly outjump receivers and catch contested passes through traffic, creating an unrealistic amount of interceptions?

Will play-action passes still fool the entire AI defense, even on obvious throwing downs? Can you still have success running the same two to three money plays all game long, without the CPU defense making any adjustments?

Given the track record of developer EA Tiburon, it is hard to have any optimism that Madden NFL 15 will capture the strategy, atmosphere and emotions of pro football any better than past unimpressive editions -- a losing streak that started with the super-disappointing Madden NFL 11, and has continued, uninterrupted, all the way up to last August's mediocre Madden NFL 25.

Dustin Toms: No. To be honest, I'm not impressed at all. Like both Jayson and Matt have just said: back-of-the-box features from Tiburon mean nothing to gamers anymore. We're ready for more of the same from that standpoint. If all of the announced features are legit, then yeah you can count me as an excited kind of guy. But...

...That trailer looked awful. Sure the graphics are vastly improved, but it looks like it's still being built off of the same game from last year. Watch the player movements and you'll see they still have the stiff robot look and feel to them. When Richard Sherman is doing his typical "crowd-pumping" move, his arms look like it's nothing but a motion - not lifelike at all. Last year was fine to build off of 360/PS3 build, but we're in the new generation now. Make us a whole new ball game.

Chris Sanner: Someone has to be the voice of dissension and I guess that is going to be me. Madden has been a boring experience on the defensive side of the ball for years now, so anything done to give gamers more of a choice and more control when trying to rush the QB are good things. That plus the toning down of QB accuracy and the improvements to DB/WR interactions all sound like they will add to the experience.

Listen folks, Madden is what Madden is. The game will not radically change from year to year just like every other sports game in our genre, this has very little to do with competition and more to do with the simple fact a one year development cycle is going to lead to incremental improvements year after year. At this point, you either like the brand of football EA is putting out there or you don't -- but you can't expect Madden to be something it simply isn't. At this point, I'm convinced that Madden will never satisfy a portion of football fans no matter what it does, but for the rest of us the improvements on the defensive side of the ball are much needed and could make defense a little more fun this year.