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Here's a review...

I'm one of the most hardcore franchise guys, and I love any simulation game. The first Head Coach had the right idea, but it was executed horribly. The new Head Coach is nothing like it, so get those thoughts out of your head. In this thread, I'll try to tell you guys why you should buy the Collector's Edition of Madden, or buy only the standalone game if you solely buy Madden for franchise.

When it comes to Free Agency, Madden has a horrible way of doing things. Up the money and you get anybody you want, but it never really comes back to bite you. In Head Coach, there is sort of an auction system on players. A pop up screen will come up, and there will be a variety of teams bidding on the player. There is 60 seconds on the clock, and teams keep raising the bid. When the price gets too high for a certain team, they will drop out, which you can visually see. The last team that remains in the bidding gets to negotiate a contract with the Free Agent, which is relatively easy. You choose from already given packages, all with given amounts of incentives and years and salaries, etc. That's how free agents are signed. Also, something that ties in with this is salary cap. Everybody that plays Madden knows the salary cap is atrocious. To keep it simple, the salary in this game is realistic. You sign 10 guys in free agency, and you can say hello to salary cap hell.

Another thing in Madden that needs a ton of work is trading. This is something that the Head Coach team took a lot of time to work on. Trades with player for player in the NFL are very rare, and they will be in this game also. You can put as many players as you want on the trading block, and the computer won't ask for any player not on the block. They'll offer you a variety of packages and you can see which one you want. That also goes for trading in the draft and picking a player that you want to trade for. The cpu will give you all the options, you can pick what you want to give up.

Another thing that is small in Madden, but needed work is the rookie contract negotiations. Select the rookie, and the contract is just there. That's the best contract pretty much. But in Head Coach, rookie contracts are hard to negotiate. You once again have packages, with different incentives, etc. These talks are much harder than free agency, and you will want to get them done to get your rookie into camp. You can cave in to their demands, or the contract negotiations can go on for the whole season. But more on getting guys into camp later...

The scouting in Madden is horrible also. It barely works lol. In Head Coach, there is a Senior Bowl, and your staff determines the amount of players/info you can scout. There are individual workouts and a combine, and each player gets graded. It's a pretty robust system which is hard to explain, so you'll have to experience it yourself. Trust me when I say though, that it's better than Madden's scouting.

The draft itself is a biggy. In Madden, it's bland and the overalls are bad and teams have bad AI. In Head Coach, teams draft for actual needs and trade up/down when necessary. There are busts and gems, so scouting is important. There are 21,000 pre-created rookies and they have their own stories and ratings, etc. Schefter will give you news about the draft and the college football season as you go through your season, and he will also give analysis of some of the picks made. There are mock drafts and everything else, everything you've wanted your Madden draft to be.

One of the great things about Head Coach is the rating system. It's not broken in Madden, but a lot of things don't matter and the progression is horrible. In Head Coach, players all have hard-coded potential for everything, which can turn people off. The thing is, players will only reach that potential with the right coaching, production, and systems. Ratings are dynamic and change depending on all of those things, so Ronde Barber might be bad in a man scheme, but he'll be great in the Tampa 2. Things like that matter for both you and the cpu on who you draft, sign, and trade for.

A nice thing that matters in Head Coach is playbooks. The playbooks are a big part to any coach's job, so they are in the game too. You can create your playbook (up to 200 O and 200 D plays) with your own custom plays and plays from other coach's books. You can also create plays on the fly in games. You can hire other team's coaches and coaches from the college ranks will come into the NFL and if you sign them, you can take plays from their playbook and add it to your own. The option, the wishbone, etc. Another realistic but often unnoticed thing is that players have to learn the playbooks. Each player has a learning rating that determines how quickly they can learn the plays. This is why you get guys into camp, if they don't know the plays they won't execute. Each player can have any play unlearned, learned, or mastered. You learn plays by using them in-game and also in training camp/practice.

Restricted Free Agents are realistic also, thought I'd throw that in there.

In game, you can call the plays, but not control the players. It seems as though the CPU plays smarter than in Madden, and the results are more realistic. Overthrows, underthrows, big plays, negative gains, everything else. The graphics aren't as good as Madden's but the way it plays outweighs the not-amazing graphics.

In practice. you can scheme to stop players or practice certain things. Depending on the level of your coaches, you get a certain amount of gamebreaking type plays come game day. Maybe I get 4 with Mike Martz or something. If I practiced the blitz, then I can call that blitz 4 times on game day and my team gets a huge stat boost for that play. This doesn't mean automatic success, but your chances improve.

The main downers of the game are that the graphics are weak, which doesn't really matter because coaching the game is a small part of the game. You can't control the players which ticks some people, but a lot of people like scheming and the x's and o's so controlling the players isn't a problem.

Any more questions about the game, ask and I'll do my best to answer them. I don't have the game, but I've read virtually everything put out on the game, listened to the podcasts, read all the Logic, gameplay, and lead producer Q&A's, and read all of the consumer impressions.