Played two online games of FUT before I had to come back to the office (boooooooo).
Could be down to the placebo effect, particularly as I've hammered PES in the last 7 days (although I will say, I don't think it is, because the last time I went from PES to FIFA I had the 9-2 which I posted a screenshot of)...
BUT...
The game seemed miiiiiiiiiles slower to me. I passed the ball around to make space, which wasn't a good way to win before (in my experience). I didn't feel rushed. (Could be because the teams I was playing weren't superstar teams, but they were better teams than mine, which usually results in me being pressed to death.)
At 60 minutes in the first match, the score was still 0-0, which I don't think has happened to me before (online in Ultimate Team). At half time, I did a little dance.
As soon as a goal went in, the "all-out attack" strategies came out though and there were plenty of through-balls, although lofted through-balls seemed less successful. It felt like FIFA again at that point (too many incisive through-balls), but defensive positioning seemed improved enough as a whole to deal with it (although I think there's still a tendency for the back line to jog up too far).
The guys I played tried to use the kick-off bug 4-5 times in total, and although one of them managed to get to the edge of the area and have a shot (which was deflected and cleared), they didn't have success generally. Still appears possible though if you get your dribbling right.
The final score of both games was 2-1 to me (must say, I scored a 95th minute goal in both games, but I don't see as many last-minute goals as others complain of).
I seemed to see a lot of goalkeeper deflections spilling out into dangerous places, which was a mild concern, but none of these instances led to goals (so I don't think this is a patch thing, I don't think the code has changed here).
They were undoubtedly the two best matches I've played in FIFA 15 online. Things seem much tighter (although my worry now is, what will the player instructions do to this balance - I see a lot of people telling every single player to get forward all of the time).
Looking forward to much more testing tonight!