I find both games dull and repetitive, too. I agree with LTFC that FIFA is the better game but lacks something critical, it lacks something that makes me want to play it. All the matches against the cpu feel the same. The ball never really feels free, it feels like it's trapped in the AI engine. Even with passing error set high, the misplaced passes just go straight to an opposition player, not into space. It all feels too tight, neat, controlled, carefully contrived, rather than free and, as has been said, random. The cpu players all have perfect control, perfect first touch, perfect everything except you can now alter their passing and shooting error. Full power long passes don't go very far, and always end up scripted to a player, usually a cpu defender who brings it down with a perfect first touch. Yawn. Even multi-player online is clearly "scripted" - ie. heavy bias in "luck" favouring one team over the other to the point where there's just no point trying - if the bias is against you, there's little point playing on. People increasingly just start scoring OGs and running up pitch with the keeper, etc. as it's become a joke of a game. On-line 5v5 in FIFA09 used to be really good (at times), now it's carefully contrived/scritped nonsense and completely unrewarding.
Turning on PES, I genuinely feel more excited. It's closer to real football, but the sheer overbearing presence of the cpu scripts just kills all the fun. When the cpu just totally ignores its own stats whenever it needs to in order to script a goal, it may as well just have a giant hand come down from the heavens , pick the ball up and throw it into your net, then stick two fingers up at you. I don't mind losing, I want a game to be hard, but I don't want to be so blatantly cheated. I don't see any hope for this series on current gen. They're just generally pissing around now, not making any real progress, the AI seems as broken and unaware as ever, but most disappointing, they're still clinging to the same old scripting and cheating they've been using since the 1990s.