I decided to give it a try in the end and whilst it's vastly improved in many respects, it is still lacking any real fluidity or fun. There is no Master League and you still cannot change difficulty or match length which is beyond absurd. Basically you can only play 5 minute matches on Beginner, regular and superstar difficulties with many options greyed out for no explicable reason. The package as a whole feels really bizarre and I'd like to see them remove the F2P element with immediate effect when the game is in a reasonable state. I'd rather pay to have the usual features available rather than have a barebone free experience.
Gameplay is much more tidier though and passing is clean. The ball physics are improved and players don't let the ball sail past them. There's still problems with overall responsiveness and players being left seemingly stunned when intercepting light passes but on the whole it's definitely more representative of traditional PES than the mobile shite they had before. This is still very much an early access/demo-type experience with an attached premium mode for online purposes so I view it more as a taster of things to come in an ongoing project rather than new release entirely. I just don't think many people have a reason to play unless they are dedicated to the online aspect so in its current state, there is nothing here for casual players and still only a handful of teams available too.