Those old games does not cut it anymore in terms of quality. Yes they (PES5, PES6 etc.) have a "cult status" effect, and they were good once upon a time. But even PES6 can't be measured fairly with a half broken PES12.
Besides, FIFA12 can be modded and tweaked into a fairly good game without much difficulty. If you bother taking the time to do it, that is. It's still shallow in terms of tactical depth, but compared to PES6... need I say more?
For the record, I think PES12 is better than FIFA12, despite all the quirks and annoyances PES got.
PES 5 was great, probably the greatest at the time. I don't think any game has ever been more superior to it's rivals than that game to be honest. I switched back to PES 5 after two days with PES
6. PES 5 was that good at the time, in my opinion.
But we don't expect too much from this generation of games. All we ask is a refined AI, and that has been produced MANY times before. Take one quick glance at the American Football games on the market, especially those from the late 90's and early 2000's, great games with almost perfect AI. Their animations are easily on PES2010 standards too, btw. Both American footy and football games involve marking and movement both offensively and defensively, so the basics of the AI should be easily translated from one game to the other.
We are not expecting too much, programmers and game companies are just a bunch of lazy sons of whores... that's the major problem!