You know this year’s Madden is going to be good when its cover is shared by two NFL superstars for the first time in its history.

Larry Fitzgerald and Troy Polamalu are just two of the players you’ll see as EA Sports brings football fans Madden NFL 10. As with its predecessors, Madden 10 lets you pick from any of the NFL’s 32 teams and play through a season or build your own team and bring it to the top in franchise mode.

This year’s Madden comes with two new online modes, though, that make it stand out as a vast improvement over the other Madden games. The first is the Online Co-Op mode, where you have the option of playing a quick pick-up game against the computer with a friend from far away. The other mode is the highly anticipated Online Franchise mode, where you can now take your carefully crafted team online to play against other custom teams across the country.

Of course, Madden 10 also comes with some new game play features which help it live up to its hype. The main new feature is called Pro-Tak (short for Procedural Tackling), which gives players more control in tackling and blocking. This means players now have to throw more than a guy or two on tougher running backs to pull them to the ground. Or if a player is on offense, he’ll have to really fight for those yards when trying to get a first down. The Pro-Tak technology also lets players battle for those fumbles that end up under a dogpile of players.

The designers of Madden 10 worked hard to make this the most realistic NFL game to date. There are a ton of new details that are fun to try to spot, such as custom Super Bowl logos on players’ uniforms when playing in the championship. The realism of Madden 10 alone makes it definitely worth a shot. And if you haven’t guessed, it’s also a great way to gear up for football season.

By Joe Legato