As someone who only gets FM every 3 years, I got to say 2023 feels like a very good improvement in comparison to FM20.
Visually the ME looks better (inside the pitch at least), the player movement and interactions with the ball and other players are amazing compared to the last version I played. Ball physics is also a lot better, at least visual wise. None of my old gripes with the ME are present or at least as common occurance as they were before.
The data hub is a gold mine for people that love stats and some of the new ways to see how your interactions reflect in players and staff are also some cool additions, albeit not major.
I have not spent a lot of time with squad planner, but so far it looks like a straight up downgrade in relation to squad depth that I was using regularly before. Limited player selection, inability to set the same filter as before (or at least them not being immediatly obvious) are two very negative points in my book.
Overall the game feels a lot better than 2020 ever had (still remember the 2020 beta and contemplating a lot on the idea of going back to FM2017 at the time), and most relevant i'm having a lot of fun with it.
There is however, one topic that I have yet to figure out as it does not match reality. Why are youth teams and main teams calendar's not synched in Champions league? They should start and end at the same time, face the same opponents in the same order, but so far, that has not been the case.
Not that I doubt that is what you are experiencing, I just have the complete opposite. IIRC, 15 games, 2 penalties, funny enough both given in the same game.