A Combination of Everything Great in The NFS Series
This game has all the best elements from the Need For Speed series in one, but put into a better design. You have great storyline that even links to the previous game, Most Wanted. There is innovative visuals, such as being the first game to have a person's face mapped into the graphics engine (very realistic face models modeled after a real person; like motion capture from someone's face). The game has a come back with police pursuits, but less frequent because the game has a more emphasis on performance driving, so constant police pursuits would be annoying.
Its awesome how the cars are put into different categories (that in turn make more cars selectable), such as Muscle cars (Domestics like the Ford Mustang), Tuners (Cars seen drifting like the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution), and Exotics (hard to afford cars like Lamborghinis and Aston Martins). They also put the cars in "Tiers", which is like a class, to avoid having a powerful car race a weaker car. I like the emphasis on performance/sport racing and having your own racing crew that have different jobs, like a blocker, drafter, and scout. Better online multiplayer modes of play. Even with the emphasis on performance driving, the game still allows free roaming (driving around the city freely).
The game is set up like each racing crew you go up against have a turf in the city. You challenge them to races to take their turf. They can challenge you for a piece of your turf too, which means you have to defend it from time to time. When you take over a whole race crew's turf, you have to race their leader, which the final "battle" is fought at the canyons surrounding the city, which is reminiscent of the Initial D movie and Fast & The Furious Tokyo Drift.
They could have done better with online multiplayer performance. None of the players on the screen run very smooth. Drift races aren't for everyone, but they did a good job with it. Drift races aren't as frustrating as they were in NFS Underground 2.
If anything, everybody needs to give this one a try by renting it.