Need for Speed fans will definitely agree with me: EA could've tried much harder.
The Good: Autosculpt - A new feature to the series. It gives you the ability to really customize your visuals and parts. You decide how thick or deep are the cuts on your bumpers, skirts, hoods, rims, exhaust tips and roof scoops. Customizable Vinyls - This time, you don't have a fixed location for the vinyls. You control their size and position. Unlockables - In NFSC, different cars, parts and visuals are unlocked by completing a series of achievements in a cool 'Reward Cards' system. Finishing the career mode isn't enough to unlock everything. More reward cards are gained in quick race mode, the challenge series, police pursuits and free roam. Car Types & Tiers - NFSC divides all cars into 3 types: Exotic (Good Acceleration), Tuner (Good Handling) and Muscle (High Top Speed). This makes you choose your racing style right from the start. There are 3 tiers for each type and thus performance parts from tier 1 can be maxed early in the game but when you buy a tier 2 car you'll have to race some more to unlock tier 2 performance parts and the same thing goes for tier 3. HUD - I like what they did to the HUD. It looks futuristic and sharp. I especially liked the RPM meter (or tachymeter).
The Bad: Difficulty - This game is much too easy!!! EA should really give you the choice and not choose for you. What's so hard in asking you when you start a new career which difficulty you want it to be? Remember those hard races from NFS Porsche Unleashed? I miss that!!! Length - I guess EA thought you can spend hours and hours of fun in quick racing or online racing, but this is ridiculous. NFSMW had 15 blacklist racers and about 5-10 (maybe more) races to challenge each of them. You do the math. NFSC is much shorter, plus there are only 4 bosses in the game. We want to work harder and beat more bosses in a game! Race Types - I can't believe they took out Drag and Lap Knockout! They added Canyon races which IMO sucks cause it's a low-speed-sharp-curved-downhill race with the option of falling off the ledge if you come too fast into the curves. EA, Stop trying to immitate The Fast And The Furius movies. This time, they take the canyon duel scene from tokyo drift and put it in the game as the only way to beat a boss. I didn't like it at all. Soundtrack - I was going to say that the soundtrack is dull but then I started a new career in the game and noticed more songs. I guess when you choose different types of cars you listen to different songs. That sucks. There aren't that much tracks to divide into each car class. Better put all tracks on random playback. The music itself is much less powerful than the last 3 installments of the series. Some of the music (like police pursuit music) is the recycled from NFSMW (That might be a good thing cause that music rocks). The soundtrack lacks originality. Visual Parts - EA keeps taking out stuff from the game. I really liked that you could customize your car's front and tail lights, as well as your sound system and engine parts' color. I also miss the paint of brake calipers. Police Pursuits - Exact same feeling as NFSMW. Only big difference is you can now use those big trucks carrying logs or cars to your advantage by making them drop their cargo and really disable a bunch of police vehicles. I hate it when there's a spike strip next to a pursuit breaker! The game goes to a cutscene showing all the police cars getting smashed by a big doughnut falling on them and when the player gets the control back on it's vehicle, it's too late to prevent going through a spike strip and popping all of your tires. Customizable Vinyls - I know I put this in 'The Good' section but it also belongs here. Changing a vinyl's position is so slow with the keyboard. Why couldn't the developers make it possible to move vinyls around with the mouse. Also, why can't we put logo vinyls on our windshield and rear window anymore? Night-time-only Racing - I HATE IT!!! What good are the graphics if there's no light? Turn on the lights next time!
The Ugly: In-Game Cut-Scenes - who needs them?? just make it all a real movie like the other scenes. Angie's character, for example, looks so bad in the game's graphics, I didn't understand at first who is talking to me. Performance Upgrades Menus - when choosing a performance upgrade, the game gives you the choice to customize that specific parts to your liking. It's pretty hard to reach the optimal car settings when customizing each parts seperately. Again, to those of you who remember need for speed porsche unleashed, you could change the car setup in one screen (brake bias, suspension stiffness, etc.).
I'm sure there are much more things I could say about Need for Speed Carbon, But in general, I want to tell EA developers not to take out good features like race types or customization options. Don't remove, only add. Also, I wanna say that I speak for a lot of players when I say I prefer realism over arcade racing. That's all I'm gonna say about that.
To the Need for Speed fans and all other gamers, This is still a fun game to play but it lacks certain elements of fun that the last 3 games in the series had, and that makes this game pretty disappointing to people who played Underground I & II and Most Wanted.