Based on all the changes to the reaction and positioning systems, I was told that this was fixed.
As I mentioned, the build we were playing was six weeks old. There was one situation where my centerback was in position to make a play on a striker outside the box and did nothing.
I paused the game and asked Aaron to take a look. I pointed out that "this is one of the major gripes within our community." He nodded in agreement and went on to explain the differences in positioning and reactions this year compared to last.....for about 20 minutes. I have faith that this has been addressed.
One area of improvement that I noticed was that your teammates are more proactive in moving towards the ball. By the time you take control of them, they are in a better position to make a play. They did react a little bit better in the copy I got to try but throughout the game Aaron asked me to pause the game to show me some of the differences between what the defenders were doing in my version compared to what they were doing in the most recent build. It sounds pretty good.
Like I said earlier, I'm pretty confident that this has been handled.