A real let down for anyone who is a Burnout fan. Missing everything you are used to. If a fan, stick with Revenge.
The open city was a nice idea, but just doesn't work. It's hard enough learning a track, but when you have to learn a whole city - that's ridiculous! Races have no set route, which sounds like a good idea, but just isn't. You spend so much time looking at the map and your GPS - style navigation while racing, it ,makes it very difficult considering that the gaming of Burnout is fast and furious and very arcade-like. When you finally have to make a turn, the corners are always complete right angles - not conducive to high speed racing while trying to ram someone. Most of the time though, you just feel like you're driving in a drag race as a lot of tracks are practically straight.
They've also got rid of the crash set pieces, which is a real shame and replaced it for a crash anywhere set up where you can continually blow up your car and bounce down the street over and over again for literally 10 minutes if you wanted to. You can also kiss good by to aftertouch, you know the slow motion bit after a crash where you try and swing in to a rival - gone - that's one of the things that made the game so great.
All the fun an excitement of jump in and play gaming has been lost. If you fail a race, you can't just try again. You have to travel back to where the race starts and then go. This can take a good 5 - 10 minutes.
What's always made the game is the awesome soundtrack and if you loved he punk and rock combo cranking out of your TV as you play, well, that's gone and been replaced with very out of place music.
This whole game is a let down. If you are new to Burnout, then this review is not for you, and you'll probably like it as it plays a lot like other street racing titles.
But it doesn't stop there...
Not only do you feel like the developers have taken out the best parts of the game, but they charge you micro-payments to play different modes and get around the city.
Honestly, keep away from this and stick with Burnout: Revenge or Burnout 3.