Lost it's touch.
Instead of picking a map and racing through a certain route, you now have the ability to roam around freely. Now this has some good and bad sides.
The good to me was.. you could just drive around without racing, and you could discover major shortcuts in races since you can ride wherever you want, however this could also be REALLY frustrating.. If you have bad navigation skills (like me). You'll have to constantly look at the map to see where you're going, when doing this you'll often find yourself crashing into another car, wall or pillar. Of course you can also follow the arrow at the top of the screen and take the turns it indicates, but you might miss a few turns anyway.. Anyhow I'd much rather just drive a simple route and watch the road instead of constantly looking at the map/arrow.
Also since it's a free-roam game, you'll be stuck in the same city the entire game. No more Italy, no more Asia, just Paradise City..
There are 3 sorts of cars and they all gain boost a different way. Racing, Power and Stunt. I suppose it was a decent feature, nothing major though.
The graphics were nice and the cars looked alright, takes ages for the cars to load though when switching in the garage.
Finally the music, since the sound effects just sound like they should. Most songs weren't really that interesting to me, there were a few exceptions but they weren't as good as the previous soundtracks by a long shot. I also don't get why they censored the words "Hell" and "Damn" in Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" song.
This game isn't necessarily bad, I just don't like it, and if you were a fan of the previous Burnouts, then you might feel a little betrayed