In this game, you will enjoy Cruise mode more than anything else.
You can set how much traffic you want, how many pedestrians you want, the time, the weather... everything, and you just go around the city and do whatever you want. Reminds me of GTA, really...
Though the racing is really fun for anyone who enjoys that kind of game. Can be really hard sometimes, you'll have to figure out shortcuts to finish the race in 1st place, and the unlockable vehicles are also really fun to play on racing and cruise mode, since all of them have something unique: speed, armor, size...
Physics are good, but they're kind of messy sometimes. Your car can spin at various, unbelieving, weird ways. The police AI is really, really dumb, since they crash into everything just to get you, but its fun to get chased, it is fun...
I wouldn't recommend you to buy this today, but if you have it, you got yourself a classic racing game.