Scott Cole Show

"NBA 2K23 is like watching your favorite team clank a wide-open dunk to lose the game. They’d been playing well the whole time, with on-court gameplay that’s better than ever, plus various retro modes that are amazing for basketball history nerds like myself, and there is a litany of modes meant to hold your interest over for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours. So where does it all go wrong? The NBA 2K franchise has put such an emphasis on pay-to-win microtransactions that its most popular game mode, the online MyCareer, feels horribly discouraging from the outset due to the disadvantage you’ll face unless you’re willing to throw down extra cash. So even while NBA 2K23 emulates the game of basketball so well, both in its present form and illustrious past of the NBA – it’s just more difficult than ever to ignore the emphasis on sucking cash out of our wallets." -IGN