I thought it was going to be some old school fun, but fun was not in the cards.
The first thing I tried as a cop was a PIT maneuver. You know, like what cops do in real life or what you do to friends to piss them off in multiplayer. After three hours of play, I have not been able to get the AI to spin out. So I did the next best thing. Sandwich them in the wall. You can't do that ether. The AI just pulls ahead like nothing happened. Even when the AI has a head-on collision they send the car flying and keep going again like nothing happened.
These few things turn the game into just an endless amount of rear ending the AI until their health reaches zero. I found it boring and frustrating that the company went out of its way to make sure the game has no tactics whatsoever. Even in NFS: Underground 2 you could do all of these things. Another thing that I found highly annoying is the fact that the AI you are chasing will just slow down if they start to pull away which really defeats the purpose of a car chase. They will also lay spike strips for you... the cop... like that's even in the ballpark of semi realistic.
The game tries to give you tactics to win in other ways by giving you things like EMP guns and sending helicopters out to drop spike strips. I found these to be rather absurd although I did find setting up road blocks and dropping behind spike strips a nice touch from the original game.
Last but not least the cop cars handle like something my grandma would drive. You feel like you're driving a boat; not a car. There is no way to customize the handling or anything else with the cars for that fact.
The game could have been great. The graphics and the tracks are good. I'm sure many people like the game, but I found the game play making me sit in my chair saying WTF every 10 seconds.