Need for Speed Underground 2 is a great addition to a racer's collection.
The city is well designed but there is no day cycle, only night which is fine because there are tons of lights around Bayview to see and light the way. You'll find yourself using the GPS to find your way around Bayview which is a terrible mistake, sometimes the GPS wants you to go one way when you're 300 yards from your destination. While other times the GPS is right on and will even adjust the route if you miss a turn. One thing I don't like is the multiple shops you need to find and visit to customize your ride, there are a lot yet they're all spread out through the city, not just 1 convenient location.
If you've finished all the races setup through the standard requirements you can cruise the streets and find someone to do an "Outrun" which is keeping a lead and extending it a certain distance, these can be tricky and the computer is way too fine on what is outrunning and what is losing the lead. You may turn a corner and be turned just a bit too much the other way ( as if you were180 degrees) and it sees that as you losing the lead instead of heading a different direction. Also opponents seem to have a tracker on you, no matter how far away you are they seem to find you without a problem. Traffic doesn't become a big deal until you're in a heated battle and then it seems to jump out of nowhere, though that's the point of traffic!
The handling isn't terrible, very simulation with a touch of arcade but this can be adjusted within the game settings. There are a lot of racing variety from drags, drifts, streets cross, circuits and more. You'll often find during a race it will rain for 60 seconds or so, the game claims rain will make your car handle different when in actuality the rain does little more than blur your vision causing you to move about in your seat as if you could see around it on the screen. Need for Speed Underground 2 is a great addition to a racer's collection but it's not much more than anything else out there.