Its seems that many more people are discouraged with this version of Winning Eleven compared to WE8LE. Is this par for the course for Winning Eleven games or did Konami try too many changes?
Common grievances:
+ the auto sidestep (especially for analog users)
+ no zoom on wide camera
+ cpu defenders buching up in penaltly box
+

+

not as effective. Almost useless. Better to use

or manual pass.
+ triple

cross too bouncy and off target
+ human controlled players suddenly shifting away from attacker as you gain control of them - example: cpu passes ball to the right and you press

to gain control of nearest defender. Suddenly he jerks to the left then you press right to recover, but the pass is received and the man is unmarked. It doesn't happen often, but when it leads to a goal... :mad:
+ attackers moving way out of the play to avoid offsides call - example: I was trying to set up Henry for a goal, but he was slightly offside. Instead of moving back slightly or allowing the defense to catch up to him, he suddenly sprints 10 meters the other way. It looks funny, but definitely costs goal scoring opportunities.
+ shooting not as precise as WE8LE. By precise I mean timing of

meter, change in lob shot. Just feels off.
+ abundance of fouls. I myself haven't notice much of a difference compared to WE8LE. Maybe, I dont play as agressive. I tend to just ride the defender slightly, timing when I press

,

, or

.
+ players slide tackling glitch - in once instance the cpu's straight leg slide across pitch several feet before he went into the slide tackle, then part of his body and arm disappeared below the grass.
+ harder to jostle for headers. I admit that it was way easy in WE8LE, especially using R2, but I don't feel in control battling for headers.
+ too many shots hitting the crossbar and posts (both human and cpu). It looks cool, I'll give it that. I rarely see that many in real soccer matches.
+ overall, the game just has this elusive "different" feel to it. And not the type of "different" that I know I could adapt to. I hope i'm wrong.
I could probably list more, especially with more game time, but I think people get the gist.
WE9 does have some great features, but the imbalances in gameplay hurt it. I know i could grow to like this game, however I'm not sure if I can overcome the auto sidestep and no zoom widecam. It's a shame because the game did make progress in many areas. Maybe with a great patch I can be converted. I'm hoping that Konami fuses WE8LE and WE9 together to create WE9 Final Evolution. That would be a phenomenal game. Keeping my fingers crossed.