Custom tactics and player instructions are the best I've seen in fifa, the players do exactly what you ask.. and what's this all teams play the same on the counter? No they don't
Completely agree. At least, I've found that if I check a teams default custom tactic, and then play against them, they play as per the custom tactic. I haven't tried radically altering a team's tactics and see if they completely change their style to the new custom tactic. I wasn't convinced they did in the demo - I've so far been happy enough playing them on their default tactics in the full game because there is good variety in how CPU teams play.
I've played matches where CPU teams have sat deep and whenever they get the ball, pump lots of long high balls forward. Others have relentlessly attacked and overwhelmed me. I've played against teams that, when out of possession, pressed my deep into my own half, whereas others back right off into their own half when they lose possession. I've played teams that focus on getting it out wide and fire in lots of crosses, others try to pass their way through the middle. Some try to pass it into the net whereas other shoot on sight from 20+ yards. I've seen a tremendous variety of CPU goals.
I've had teams dominate me early on and get 2 goals up, but when I pull one back, they completely lose control of the match and their mentality changes to resort to defending and hoofing it clear.
The physicality in the game is better than before - the shirt-tugging and squabbling for the ball is much improved and Tactical Defending finally has, most of the time, got rid of the ridiculous 2 metre invisible halo around CPU players which prevented you getting close to them, although it does still occur when the CPU is on cheaty "boost" mode.
I'm also seeing CPU players make more errors than ever before. Particularly pleasing is that CPU defenders are prone to more mistakes and not be so perfect. I've seen the CPU miscue shots so badly that they've gone out for throw-ins.
There's a huge amount of detail in all the little deflections and their effect on the path and spin on the ball.
For me, this is the follow up to FIFA16 that FIFA17 should have been. I'm not sure what patches are in the pipeline but so far, I'm happy with how it is out-of-the-box.