This game surprised me!
Starting with the car selection. I haven't counted the total number of cars but I think it is quite a reasonable amount to choose from and I think there is a much more varied selection than there has been in previous games.
The way the cars handle is also different to most NFS games. It's not a racing sim like Gran Turismo, but its not an arcade racer either. The cars have a much more realistic feel to them.
The customization options aren't as varied as they are in previous games, but you're not building a street racing car in this game, you're building a full on racing machine. One thing which I think does add some variety to the game is that only certain cars can be customised in certain ways. Some cars can be Works upgraded, some can't. Some can be used for drifting some can't.
I think my only problem is that the drifting on this game is so different to previous games that it is quite hard to get used to, but once you've got it, its easy.
Just thought of another problem, the if the difficulty is on easy and the AI have a good car, its quite often harder as they just crash all the time, quite often into you.
Overall though its a very good racing game, which will keep me entertained at least until Gran Turismo 5 comes out!