The Good and The Bad..
The Good: The cutscenes are awesome and the voice acting is even better. It adjust from day to night very well and the soundtrack is great. The Police are relentless and it's always fun dumping a car in the water when it has too much heat on it. The aiming is decent and the way the sun blinds you is at times is sheer brilliants. The cops will case after you for exeding the speed limit or running a red light. Auto save feature.
The Bad: The way he walks makes him look like he just got caught on fire. You cant get caught on fire. You cant swim, instead you get a cheesy line like "not a good day for a swim". You cant enter any stores, you cant change you appearence, and above all there are no weather changes. The driving hasnt really changed from Driv3r and the cinematic scenes force you to wreck. Its very hard to get rid of heat once its on you and there are no save houses or anywhere to spawn from once youve been killed or busted. You just "replay" and spawn from your last save point.
The game really reminds me of a mixture of GTA 3 and Vice City. Its not anywhere near the level of San Andreas but the Driver series is slowy catching up. Fact is, GTA started the whole 3d free roam series, because it was the first to do it so well. Im not sure if this game was rushed or just trying to stay away from being called a GTA clone (which really isnt that bad).
Conclusion: The game is strong is some points like its car moding but weak in others..many others. I recommend it for hard core fans of the driver series, other than that wait till the price drops 10 bucks or rent it. Solid game with the building blocks of a strong sequel, just not on the level of san andres..a bit primative.