Off the field, the franchise mode didn’t receive a whole lot of attention. Yes, you can now expand rosters to 40 players in September, hold the rookie draft in the summer like the real big leagues, and use a trade finder to put a player on the trade block to get a list of players in return that AI teams will move to obtain that player, and you even get compensatory draft picks for signing Type A free agents – all fine additions (oddly enough there is no player arbitration). But what good is draft pick compensation for signing free agents when the game rarely has top flight free agents available? CPU teams love to re-sign its players and after the first two off seasons the number of elite free agents was minimal. Team budgets are part of the problem and you’re free to edit all this data if you like – I personally have better things to do these days than to fix what’s broken, but hopefully 2K will address this via a patch because without a real free agency you are basically playing Reserve Clause baseball.

What you can’t fix on your own is the player progression model which looks to be untouched from 2K9. Way too many players improve their skillset in the off season and this also holds true for aging veteran players who should start to see their ability decline in their mid 30s. Scott Rolen is not going to get better after the 2010 season – especially if he hits .244 like he did in my game. Other common franchise issues remain such as laughably bad trade AI and a stat model that looks a little "canned".

Thankfully, you can play the game in a few other ways this year such as following your team game by game and downloading up to the minute rosters. I think playing a full 162 game season alongside your favorite team – downloading the real rosters and real pitching matchups and adjusted player ratings is a really neat idea and more and more sports games are doing this nowadays.

Finally, there’s 2K10’s answer to MLB’s Road to the Show. The new “My Player” is basically a mini RPG which puts you in the shoes of a hot new minor league prospect who starts his career in AA and tries to work his way up to the Bigs. You are presented with clear goals for each game and if you do a good job meeting these requirements you are more likely to get a call. This mode is fun as a hitter but I think shines most when pitching as you’re more involved each game.

Online play is hard to test – other than to say “it works”. For me the big draw is online franchise and with the franchise mode issues it takes the bloom off that rose. You can certainly play games online and this year it seems to have minimal lag and you can bring in friends to play offline franchise games which is really slick but until franchise mode works as it should this mode of play will continue to feel a little hollow.

I look at Major League Baseball 2K10 as a foundational game. This is the first time in a long time that 2K has a viable baseball game in its stable, and while there remain many issues that need to be addressed either via a patch or for 2K11, at least now the developers have something real to build on rather than being forced to start all over again.