In the last six months, I played in an EAFC tournament and a PES6 tournament. In person, with friends. It shocked me, the difference between the two.
Everybody was so miserable playing EAFC. Every game, the comments were "how is this so easy", "there's no accomplishment in doing anything in this game", "I'm not even trying and it's 6-6 at half time", "you can just blast from box to box", "this is so far from football", "this is so boring" and a very genuine desperation to finish. It felt more like a job than a game. (Score as many as you can, then log off.)
But PES6... It started out with "why are we going to play this", "this will have aged so badly" ... and within minutes, the OOHS and AHHS came (which is when you know everyone is invested, and absorbed, in the game). Because nothing was gifted to you. You absolutely HAD to concentrate - especially if you were a poor side - and sometimes you'd do everything right but still miss the target (which made it all the sweeter when finally managing to score).
The difference between the two, especially when playing with poor teams/players, was absolutely astronomical. Which you can only assume is because of the development idea that nobody wants to be frustrated by having players who don't perform every pass/shot with 100% accuracy, with no control over it. Which is just... Such a shocking state of affairs.
That's why it breaks my heart so much that we'll never have a truly great multiplayer football game ever again. I know plenty of people who are still craving it...
...but we're all over 30 and don't play Ultimate Team, so nobody cares.