[Yick]

Early impressions:

• I've decided I like most of the UI changes. I wasn't sure about the rounded elements at first but they've grown on me. The only place I don't like them is in the player lists, especially when the up and down arrows are next to the player names. It looks messy. But everywhere else it looks good.
• The in-game 3D animations are much improved. It's always just been a bonus to have that (I was happy when they were just little pegs translating across the field), but it's starting to look really good.
• The game "feels" better optimized than in years past. Seems to run smoother and loading times seem shorter
• Haven't had a chance to get a feel for the new backend systems yet, like the trading AI
• In the end, it's still OOTP. I don't feel I need to buy this every year, but I do, and I have no ragrets