I buy them every year like a true sucker, they are OK but in true hockey fashion the afterthought EA sports title. If you are into the "Ultimate Team" stuff EA puts out, you can have some fun collecting players and doing ranked shit but that p2w line gets super thin real quick.
What keeps me coming back is the Be a Pro Mode and more specifically the EASHL. In those modes you are locked into playing your position. Playing a full 6v6 where all players understand the game and positioning is incredibly rewarding in terms of fun factor, however the shallow player pool makes those moments a tad scarce if you are doing "drop-ins". Join a ps4 community or search reddit and you can form/join a static team and rank your team up and compete in monthly tourny's and the such unlocking customization for your player and arena. This year they improved upon that experience (after completely dumbing it down 4 years ago) by allowing you to level up and unlock perks to sort of spec out the pre assigned player types (i.e. Sniper, power forward, grinder etc..). Dicked around with it in Beta and it was an improvement over the system of prior years overall as it allows for a little more versatility between players.
Then they added CHEL this year which is also like what I mentioned above but super arcadey and I think mostly 3v3? Quick, high paced bursts of low commitment fun but will get old real fast IMO.
I always feel I get my monies worth personally. If you are new to the franchise, like video games and Hockey I can't imagine you not feeling the same.