I'm an NFL nut, so I feel compelled to purchase Madden year after year.
I have friends out of state that like to play online, otherwise, I would probably skip this year.
However, since the series made the jump to the current generation of consoles, I just don't like the series as much as I used to. Either, I tired of the formula, or they just don't seem to be quite as solid of products as they used to be, or perhaps a combination?
I really used to enjoy the single player franchise modes in the PS2 & Xbox era. I like the management aspect of developing players and whatnot. However that franchise modes on the current gen of consoles have sucked, so far. There always seems to be some portion of it that is essentially broken. Last year was player progression and maybe the draft, also. The draft worked, but the rookie selections were all out of sorts. It seemed like anyone in the league could get a new franchise QB in the first round, there were TONS of GREAT players to be had at certain positions. It was simply unrealistic. I think that was last year, but maybe it was the year before?
And Lord Helmet is right, once you get used to the CPU AI, you can generally blow them away pretty easily.
Lately, EA always seems to release it full of bugs and issues and then finally gets around to correcting a few of them with updates by the time the real season is about half over.
If you are hopelessly addicted to the NFL, you may enjoy it to some degree. If you're picky like me, you'll buy it and then just piss and moan about it later.