Haven't played a new release sports game in fifteen years or so, and when this longtime Sony exclusive was made available on Xbox, on Game Pass, on day one, I knew I'd take the plunge. The gameplay is more or less what it's always been, and the things I loved and hated came down to the menus and game modes. Huge fan of the idea of a "diamond dynasty" in which you essentially build up a fantasy team of the best possible players from years past and present. Give this old-ass millennial Frank Thomas, Alfonso Soriano, and Pedro Martinez any day. The flagship "Road to the Show" feature felt like a total slog though, just tons of time spent simulating games and churning through mundane menu text. Huge bummer that you can only have three pitches with a create-a-pitcher, and if they've fixed that via patch by now, who cares? Too little, too late. Another huge issue: the servers constantly crashing. A minor annoyance when you want to start playing a game, but an enormous pain in the ass when you've just spent an hour on a crucial win of some sort and the network shits its pants and bails, erasing your hard-earned W. Need to tear myself away from this one because the dopamine hits associated with unlocking so many players and perks and cards are enough to addict a man, but the time spent here ultimately just isn't worth it with so many other games on the table.