I played (and really liked) 2K19, so I was eager to get stuck into 2K20.

I'm mainly a My Career player and don't play much of the online stuff, so the mechanics and things are smooth, it's fun actually playing ball… But the huge focus on VC and grinding to make your player better – which has been a thing for at least a few years but has been dialled up a tonne this year – makes it an incredibly frustrating game.

You play a game, train a couple of skills (usually repeating the same drill over and over because you're targeting a badge), it levels up a tiny amount, rinse, repeat. It's super monotonous and it seems that 2K are trying to bore you into spending money on VC in order to fast-forward your progress. I don't mind spending a little on VC to cut some of this out, but your money goes nowhere near as far as it has in the past.

This coupled with the forced advertisements everywhere (e.g. You can't skip a timeout until you've seen the Gatorade bit at the start) makes it feel like a money-grabbing 2K19 refresh. The neighbourhood, the shops, everything feels much the same, so you wonder what was actually achieved since the last release.

There was certainly grinding in 2K19, but it's so much worse in 2K20 that I tired of it really fast and didn't play it past the first couple of weeks. I think that this is a turning point in the 2K franchise and they really need to step up the game next year if they want people to continue buying games in this series. I won't be buying 2K21. EA has a big opportunity to fill this spot.

My advice is to avoid this game and buy 2K19.