ive bought this game for many years and think this might be my last. firstly im not keen on spending £30 a year on something that could be released as an update. the lack of competition in the manager genre has made SI very lazy, to the point where they make one or two small changes and market it as a new game. here are some of the points where my problems lie

-ridiculous injurys, in my first season there was not one point where i didnt have at least six players injured

-how many times in real football does a team make all its subs then a player gets injured and they finish the game with 10 men? well in FM about one in three games but amazingly never to the computer opponent

-its almost impossible to generate any momentum anymore in FM, you will be playing well then suddenly lose for no reason

-football has always been in the headlines for footballers astronomical wages, thank god its not like FM, youth players who have never made a first team appearance asking for 40k! agents of average players asking for 5mill in fees!

-instead of improving things like the ability to see how your players have performed in training during the week to help your decisions on who to play SI add 'tunnel interviews'?!? i can imagine the meeting at SI 'so what have the fans on the forums been asking for'
'well their all desperate for more press interviews in the game, they just dont feel theres enough'

as fans of the series we should treat SI like an alchoholic relative and not hand over money to them to continue their bad habits, in this case their bad habits being treating fans like cash-cows that they can just make sub-standard games for and rely on fan loyalty

This has to be this worst FM for a long time. I can't seem to get into it like the others and match engine doesn't seem as good.

I've no idea why the devs felt the need to change the match engine again because they changed it in FM 14 and that was bugged on release as well but alot better than in this version. When players are running with the ball, it's as though they are running in thick mud cos they are so slow. Goalkeepers are broken, they can't seem to save anything.

The UI is bad as well, no idea why they felt the need to change it. Selecting your team line up now requires more clicks and takes longer cos of the changes.

I really hope the devs fix the issues but overall this game is a disappointment over previous FM games.

First of all i'd like to say i've been a football manager fan for many years now dating back to the late nineties and the good old days of championship manager. I haven't played much of the game thus far so this mini review is based on my early experiences.
I was looking forward to this years release, hoping it would be a massive improvement on last years title. Unfortunatly this isn't the case. All the things i hated about FM14 are still very much present in FM15 and much more.

Personally when i play the game i like to take control of a small team and work my way up the career ladder, rather than taking control over a ready made team such as Barcelona or Real Madrid for example.
Now i understand when playing in the lower leagues the game difficulty is increased and as the player you need to be more mind full of this.
The the fact of the matter is in FM15 it is impossible to build a team from scratch, unless of course you cheat or have a ridiculous amount of spare time( and no i dont want to play classic mode). Player wages and contract renewals are a joke, the demands of players at the lower league level are just unfair resulting in the player leaving on a free and subsequently joining another team at the same level but for lower wages it honestly has me pulling my hair out at times.

Players would also choose retirement form football all together over playing for a small team on low wages, surley a footballer would want to get his career back on track and get himself in the shop window. Everyone's a winner the club could get some much needed investment through a big transfer sale and the player is back playing pro football.

I mean C'mon whats the point? Just so the game can make room for the thousands of pointless 15 year old regens(doesn't include under 18 squads) that will never play a competive match.....ever! Not that you'll know how good they are anyway seen as scouting takes FOREVER! and when they do return with a report the attributes are all ranged for instance pace could be between 8 and 15.
Now in theroy i do like this idea it makes sense and encourages the player to make the most of the scouts at his or her disposal.
In pratice it sucks big time to many numbers wedged into a small box, not a good design and again just adds to the confusion, with that in mind i recommend ticking the "dissable attribute masking" box upon starting a new game. You will still find ways to utilise the scouts.

The match engine once again is so so poor, trust me i'm not being over critical just honest, but if you like seeing burger vans outside the staduim you'll probably love it even if you are losing 6-0 and every goal has contradicted your tactics in every possible way, a tactic i might add that you spent hours on before hand.
Tactics have become confusing how on earth FM can attract new players to the franchise is beyond me. The game offers no help whatsoever to the first time player and a guide showing you around the new skin just doesn't cut it.
Even a experienced player( NOTE NOT GOOD HA HA!) such as myself have felt a little out of my depth and i have felt on a few occasions unsure on what i can actually do to stop a losing run or how to tighen up a leeky defense, hell i'm unsure at times what exactly it is i'm doing right when i'm winning. The point is my back room staff need to contribute more, telling me to "close down a player" isn't always enough, tell me who would be best to use to close a player down stuff like that.

Player instructions just don't work half the time, you concentrate on a certain asspect of the team and the game will punish you in other area's, if you don't want to lose the shape of your team defensivley and as such instruct the team to close down less, the A.I simply score a high amount of goals from outside the box reguardless of the goal scorers long shot attribute. Or the ball would be given away in a dangerous area like a horrendous back pass etc. It's like the A.I gets the hump when you out smart it.

FM has lost it's spark, there is no fun in playing anymore, it's like it has forgotten what it is and that quiet simply is a computer game, nothing more nothing less. It's gotten far to serious for it's own good. The days of winning the champions league with Dag&Red are all but gone.
I have put in roughly 11-12 hours into my first save and i'm half way through my first season having won only 2 games.

I feel right now like unistalling and going back to FM 13 or even 12.
I'm not saying don't buy this game, but i am saying to be mindful you could find yourself shouting at your computer screen a little more than usual, things will get broken trust me. But i suppose thats what FM is all about right? Real football mangers get stressed so it makes sense for the "most realistic football management simulator" for follow suit, correct?

I'm sure there are alot of good things about FM15 and maybe my tactic's and team selection were crap, however having just lost 6-5 to 10 men Barrow the bad outweighs the good. It's a real shame but i truely feel FM has gone down the same road as fifa where the only real change to the game are the updated summer transfers and i'm gutted i really am.

After 250 hours of game play, it's time for a review of FM15. I've been playing these games for a long time (since CM96-97 since you asked), and honestly, I think this one is the best yet. There were some early problems with the match engine, and the Inverted Wing Back role is still broken (he stays wide like a normal Wing Back), but the vast majority of the most glaring issues (high scoring games, regular goalkeeping errors, etc) have been fixed in SI's patches and in good time as well.

I thought the motion capture animations in the match engine would be a bit of a gimmick, but that has turned out to be a welcome addition to the game on an aesthetic level. It's by no means hyper-realistic to the point where you'd be unsure whether you're watching a match on TV or in FM, but it's a big step up from the hand drawn players of FM14. The realism (or lack of) isn't a deal breaker for me, all I want to see is a realistic simulation of a football match and in FM15, that's what we have for the most part.

If you watch the matches on 'Comprehensive' highlights or higher, then you can easily see your tactical decisions playing out in front of you as the game ebbs and flows, and for that, if nothing else, FM15 is the best edition of the Football Manager series so far. Setting up a tactic is fairly simple, although not fool proof, but like any simulation, it's easy to get in to, and difficult to master. One thing I have noticed though, having spent a lot of time talking to other players and reading some of the reviews here on Steam, is that this is not a game for players who want to just pick a match day squad and have a hands-off approach to management. You will succeed at FM if you make sensible tactical choices, always be mindful of balance in your roles/duties and don't use the same approach for every match you play. Every match will play out differently.

the most common complaints I've seen from others are regarding injuries and 'dominating' the game yet losing in the dying moments of the match.

For injuries, I don't have these problems as I make sure my players are fully fit. Use pre-season wisely, allow your players to ease into it after coming back from holiday, then train hard and play lots of friendlies. Once the season begins, lower the intensity of training and give them all individual set ups. It takes a while, but if you do this, your players will be much less prone to injury and will develop faster as well. There will be injuries of course, but I don't have anywhere near the issues others are having, and most of my injury problems are in-game due to my aggressive high pressing style.

On the domination side of things, I will say that more shots and possession does not mean dominance. Choose your battles wisely. If you're the bigger team, you can expect your opponent to sit back and hit you on the counter. Counter this yourself by playing patiently and forcing mistakes, your creative players will take care of the rest. I'm not an FM expert, but if you take these simple words of advice, then you will see for yourself how quickly things will turn around for your team.

The only thing I can't comment on yet is the AI's squad development in the long term as I haven't gone far enough into the game yet. In past FM's, this has been a problem, but I can already see less instances of the AI spending millions on a player only to let him rot in their reserve team.

As SI say themselves, "it'll never be perfect, it'll never be finished", so as long as you go into the game with that mindset, you'll get the most out of it.

I highly rcommend this game for anyone who watches football analytically or who thinks they could do a better job than their favourite team's manager.

Ridiculous match engine which sees many matches end 4-4, 6-4, 5-5 etc. You will go 3-0 up and use containing tactics to protect your lead, only to conceed 5 second half goals and lose 3-5. I've already had 3 goals scored from attacking teams own half i.e 60/70 yard strikes. Most goals come from rebounds from the keeper or the woodwork. Its all just a bit broken.
I have been playing football manager since its Amiga Championship Manager days and this has to be the worst effort yet. I usually wait for these titles to go on sale but bought this one at full price, eager to get hold of my teams (Watford) potential promotion winning squad. Never again will i pay full price for a Football Manager game. Very disappointed. I am sure future patches will address some of these issues but they never should have released an unfinished, unbalanced game

Time for yet another FM, and instead of the usual praise to the sky; I find myself struggling for words.

I played as FC Copenhagen, within a month I had 8(!) first/key team members out with injuries - and not just the common cold, mind you - no, oh no. One with a broken ankel, two with damaged tendrons, a broken foot etc. The shortest injury was 3(!!!!) months - I feel like I'm running a community hospital rather than a football club.
Anyways, we recover and start winning some matches - except... We don't. For some odd reason it seems like you can dominate a match, to the point where even the opponents fans are rooting for you, and yet they still pull a comeback at the end. Draws galore. 1 shot, 1 kill, so to speak.

But heck, let's review some of the positives as well... Great, realistic scouting system. Good layout. Aaaaand. Yup.
I'd recommend you wait purchasing this game until another update has come out. Do it for you own sake, and for ours - the unfortunate souls that purchased this game in good faith that it would be the high standard the game usually is.
Let them feel the heat, so they can fix this ASAP.

Won the League with Liverpool. Most unrealistic version yet. 1/10

This game is really atrociously bad. Tactics are stupid, the players are stupid and what can you say about the match-engine.... is just action after reaction after reaction - ask your team to tackle a player hard - get sent off after 2 min - go 2 up - get 2 pegged back - then score 3- 2 - or go 2 down - peg 2 back - then lose 3-2 - teamtalk, press conferences - what's the point of it all... seriously - i want my money back - the last good FM was also the first one - 2005... 10 years of garbage and it's just keeps getting worse by every year - i will never buy FM again.

I'm a FIFA Manager guy. However, as it has been discontinued, I had to move to Football Manager. A friend taught me the ropes, and I've been playing for a while. I played with Liverpool, AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen and Atlético Madrid. No game has gone to mid-season.

I studied, researched and spent a lot of time talking with friends about this game. I wish I hadn't.

This is just the worst Manager game I've ever played for a simple reason: Nothing you do matters. I bought Marco Reus and Alex Oxdale-Chamberlain to play on the wings. Might as well have kept the money for myself and used Emile Heskey and Djimi Traoré there. The most skilled player cannot dribble past the worst defender. The best crosser of the ball cannot beat the first man. The tallest and best header cannot score 3 goals a season from crosses. Every team play the exact same way, and most goals come from the same three things: Shots from outside the box, defensive mistakes and free-kicks. In upwards of 300 hours spent in the game, I don't think I saw a single goal from a corner. However, three times I saw a goalkeeper handle the ball outside the box and get booked, and two of those free-kicks resulted in goals.

Players are so unbelievably stupid that it's annoying. Steven Gerrard to take a free kick on the edge of the box. You think he's going for goal. No. He's going to pass it back to the left back, who will then try to dribble and lose it. You think Asmir Begovic is a good goalkeeper? Well, he's not above handling the ball outside of the box when trying to boot it upfield.

I'd always been told that Football Manager was all about the tactics, and that it is the hardest thing to manage. Well, it is hard. Specially because no matter how you set your team up to play, they will always play the same way. You can try to get the best passers of the game, but they will misplace at least 30% of their 6 yard passes. This is so frustrating I'm at a loss for words.

Injuries? Well, how's this for a list. Before the third match of the season, I had the following players injured: Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxdale-Chamberlain, Alberto Moreno, John Flanagan, Marco Reus, Adam Lallana, Daniel Sturridge, Asmir Begovic and Mario Balotelli. That's BEFORE THE THIRD MATCH! All of those players (bar Lallana and Reus, who are injured at the start of the season) got injured during pre season! Seriously?

Unless this game is heavily patched to fix everything that's not just wrong, but plain dumb, I'll be forced to stop playing a genre I really enjoy because EA were not competent enough to keep FIFA Manager going, and because SEGA apparently have no clue what a football match looks like.

I'll wait and see. But I will not hope for much.

Why does everyone cost so much, even kids?? I found a 17 Year Old, Bjorn Marinov....Never good enough for my team, barely good enough for most teams. Got fed up getting stupid offers back from good clubs for good players so chanced him out of curiosity and here is what I got

Stats: Not the worst, but hardly great http://s28.postimg.org/da7xs1zr1/Marinov.png

Clubs Valuation, utterly stupid http://s28.postimg.org/aheq80zel/Marinov_Neg.png

And this is every time, every player!!

I know the footballing world has inflated valuations for players and FM takes that in to account but for the love of Jebus,
some common sense would be nice.

Also, would be nice to buy a game that works and is playable from day 1, the day you buy it.
Rather that having to wait till near Jebus Bday before it's playable, here's an idea...far out there
but worth a try, find someone, or more than one, in the office that plays the damn game, get
them to try it out BEFORE you have the audacity to charge people for it, so that when you
do charge for beta it's only minor fixes. Then when you sell the full game, it ♥♥♥♥ing works!!!

Remember when you could hand over your money, and in return get a fully working, enjoyable game??

I REMEMBER!!!

Regardless, I will NEVER buy this game again, Stupidly thought this year would be better, like i did last year...
and the year before....basically, same ♥♥♥♥, every year...rant over!

This franchise had been in decline for a few years now.

FM14 had absolutely terrible defending, and the problem still isn't gone.
This is especially clear in lower leagues, where it's rare to have a game without AT LEAST 4 goals.
The match engine does look and work better, in most aspects, than last year, but at the end of the day, the scorelines are still ridiculously unrealistic.

The 3D engine is still extremely bad graphically, but whatever, 2D classic is the way to go, I mean it would be, if not for the unrealistic results.

I haven't played a really good FM in years, and this is not one either.

Match engine is very poor. Spend so much time working to build a decent squad and to develop tactics that work only for it to be entirely spoiled by the way this game treats me. Too many injuries, too many goals, morale crumbles at the slightest thing, players do not follow instructions, goalkeepers are pitiful, poor animations, players are overly stroppy, long saving times. This is a video game - GAME being the operative word. I don't really care if this is as realistic as it gets. I'd sacrifice realism if the game was fun, but it's not. FM 2014 was poor too. I'm still hoping a patch will deal with some if not all of these issues, but part of me knows it won't. Goodbye 20 years of loyalty to SI. These things are too expensive for me to spend money on if they're not enjoyable.

Applies only for the Linux port of FM2015
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I really loved Football Manager series. I am not going to expalin what they are or how to play them.

I am really happy they tried to bring it to Linux.

But they have failed. The game freezes constantly. Sometimes when you click "continue", sometimes when you try to offer a contract to someone. When it freezes, there is no solution - you have to kill the process. Crashing/Freezing like this 3 or more times per game week is simply unacceptable and completely ruined gameplay for me. The 'freezing' issue is quite common on their forums, but there is no constructive response whatsoever. I am disappointed with the Linux port of the game and don't recommend anyone buying into frustrations like this.

---------------
Ubuntu 14.04, most popular distribution, with a good radeon driver on which everything seems to run just fine.

bad fm that i've ever played too easy too score
goal keeper -*- cant do anythings
lots of goal from corner

waste money to buy this game

The lights flick on. Your hands and feet are bound to the bed posts. It's Didier Drogba standing over you, full mast, ready to have his way. You contemplate the vicious cycle of love and abuse. It's no use, you're hooked even against your better judgement. Perhaps he'll be gentle this time, let you feel something positive, give you something to hold on to. Something that feels good again. He used to say he loved you. He used to care. I need help...

Another version. Pretty much the same as the others but upgraded.
More animations and more....animations. More features as well, apparently, but we'll get to that soon.

I was excited for FM 2015, as i normally am whenever a new version comes out.
I start up a save where i'm unemployed with a Sunday League reputation.
This time i have to think about the coaching badges as well. I don't want any. I will start at the very bottom.
Then i experience some RPG attribute thingy. Am i a tracksuit manager or a tactical manager?
Hell if i know. I am both but according to the game i kind of have to choose one or the other.
I like the idea but i find it a bit too gimmicky.

Loading up every single league the game comes with, and a large database. Takes me about 15 minutes before i can start playing for real.
The game progresses smoothly. No problems being over the recommended player limit, yet. I'm in the year 2025 now and still no problem.
Granted, it slows down a bit when changing months, changing year and during transfer deadline days; but i expected that.

Playing the game itself is a bit like a tiny rollercoaster ride.
I love playing the game but there are so many tiny bugs and features that don't work very well.

Sidebar. I don't mind it but it gives me less room for customised screens.
While on the subject customised screens; A complete mess. I "warned" them about these kind of things on SI's forums.
Small tiny bugs like these might seems small but they will come back and be a bigger issue.
It's been there for a long, long time and they haven't done anything about it. It wasn't prioritised and now they're struggling to figure out how to fix it. Go figure

Customising screens is a nightmare. Columns disappearing left and right, when you have plenty of room on the screen. You just want to adjust the width of one column a few mm. "POOF" an entire column or two, gone.
Very annoying, as i customise most of my screens.

Player interactions are just a complete mess and do not work properly.
An entire team in outrage because a 17-year old, who wouldn't get anywhere near the bench of my local 10th-tier real-life club. Amazing. Nobody would care. Not even the 17-year old himself.

Players complaining that they want to play more games.
We are in the middle of the bleeding holidays. We don't have another game for 3 months.
Then comes back and wants to leave because i didn't keep my promise of playing him.
We're still one and a half month away from our first friendly.
Then, when i try to sell him, he complains that i'm trying to force him out of the club.
Well....kind of, yeah?! You wanted to leave becuase of playing time and me not keeping promises, so now you want to leave, because i was trying to let you leave because you wanted to?

Player interactions is a big mess.

One big negative from me is:
Tactics screen.

Lord, oh lord, what have they done?!
FM14 had the close-to-perfect tactics screen and then they change it, for no apparent reason.
Change it to something a thousand times worse.
Now, to be fair, they have updated the tactics screen with their patches, so it looks a bit better.
To a new player, i don't know what to say.
I, personally, don't like the tactics screen at all. I simply don't use it.

Backroom advice. My coaches are still offering me contradicting advice.
Why the hell would i want my left fullback dribble on the right hand side when you just told me
to train him so he doesn't do that anymore?!

I could write a whole lot more about the ups and downs with this game but i'll just do this:

I do enjoy the game quite a bit, but it's not the best FM. Far away from it.
Another not-complete version of this game, which i am getting a bit tired of.
It seems like it's acceptable that this is always a game in progress.
It will always be in progress and i understand that.
But each released version should feel like a complete product. It doesn't, and it hasn't done that for a long time.
People on the forums wants features and more features.

On one hand they get applauded for doing so, but when things aren't working so well they get the defenders shouting, they're just a small company.
If they're not so big then stop adding so many features.
Stop adding more than they can handle, which seems to be the case, more and more each year.
More features doesn't equal better product. It also needs to work properly, which it doesn't.

This seems like an overly negative review, and it kind of is.
But i have to say that i do enjoy this iteration as well.
I'll still have, probably, over a thousand hours in this game, when FM16 comes out.
Having a lot of fun. Finding it harder, personally, than any other version but i love the challenge.

I do recommend this game. Make no mistake about that!!!

I'll leave this review with the things that bothers me the most about this FM2015:

Cons:
- Player interactions doesn't work properly
- Tactics screen X 1000. It's just many steps back from what they had.
- Issue with getting players match fit in lower leagues
- Too easy overacheiving when you have the right tactic (compared to real life)
- Scouting is very tedious and doesn't work properly
- Customising screens doesn't really work

WHile i have loved the Fm series since it's inception this is the worst version i have played.

Yes the menu system has been changed and will take a while to get used to ut just feels cluncky, and the scouting system has changed drematically and has problems as i scouted Ross Barkley managing Swansea and got back this player would not be a worth while signing.

The worst thing about this game is whatever decideds the score currently i am 15 games into the season and so far the best result for any team away is a draw Burnley v Chelsea 1-1 all the other matches have been home wins for the respected teams and some strange results Q.P.R beating Arsnel 6-3 my results away have been awful and at home frakley strange
H v everton 5-2 W
A v Villa 4-0 L
A v Leicester 7-0 L
H v Man City 2-1 W
H v Man Utd 1-0 W
A v Tot 4-2 L
H v Liverpool 3-0 W
A v Burnley 2-0 L
A v Chelsea 8-2 L
A v West Ham 6-0 L
H v Arsenal 3-1 W
H v west brom 6-2 W
A v Southhampton 3-1 L
H v Q.P.R 4-0 W
A v Sunderland 1-0 L

It's stupid everyone is near enough on the same popints it's coming down to goal difference this has nothing to do with tactics or team moral there is a major bug in the system

Played football manager since its inception in '84 on the zx spectrum, this is one of the worst in the series for multiple reasons. The devs seem to have the notion of more is constantly better whilst getting the fundamentals of the game which always stood it above the rest completely wrong. I have thousands of hours in football manager games and never been compelled to write a negative review.

Although playable is not great, the series has gone downhill the last few years in my opinion.

So many injuries in just 3 weeks (got like 9 injured players)..

I'd prefer 2014 & 2013

The match engine is very unrealistic. I believe that I stand for most FM players when I say that the best attraction for this game is the tactical ingenuity that we, the players, can display that wins matches and title. Yet, the tactical changes we make is not reflected during the actual matches. The man managing aspect of the game is also overly complicated. Managers now also have basis stats for our tactican attributes which does not make any sense.

The biggest problem nonetheless is the tactical and match engine. The tactical gameplans are not reflected on the pitch and neither are the attributes of the players. The poor match engine results in goal galores that are just too unrealistic.