game performance and high fun factor makes this a must have game if you have any desire to play with vehicles
- totally unintuitive (un-PC-like) setup options and menus -- use F1 to flip the options
- no story (is the story necessary here? Maybe not)
- no drivers visible in vehicles (including your own; except, of course on bikes)
- online connectivity to the EA/Criterion ... well, put it really mildly ... IT SUCKS big time and many people report being able to connect to their MP sessions once or twice and then never again. This needs to be addressed since the MP is really fun, or it can be. More importantly, without the MP access the game will eventually get *old* and stale.
And the rest is a 100% pure FUN. Combined with great visuals and graphics that smoothly run on RenderWare game engine it's hard to beat the fun factor this game provides. Yet, when you first start the game, its options are very confusing and unintuitive (controls, options, how to start the race ... not much is clear). The game is more geared to be used with controllers/game pads than with the mouse/keyboard combo ... actually, forget the mouse, it's not used for anything except maybe clicking on menu items. Since I never use a controller, driving with a keyboard is as perfect as it gets -- I re-keyed commands to the typical WASD rather than the default *arrow* keys, but peeps who'd rather use the right hand to navigate the streets need not to change much. Racing, driving, crashing visuals are great ... actually, one thing that will surprise many is the smoothness and speed that this game is running at the highest setting which renders the environment and especially vehicles great. And, you don't need the newest rig to see it all either. Overall, the online connectivity and the ability to jump into the MP remains the biggest issue, but otherwise this game is a rare gem in the PC driving/racing genre. In terms of difficulty, the game is successfully walking the fine line between a reduced realism (and it's quite forgiving) and still being challenging enough. Not feeling like racing ... well, sometimes just driving around and not competing is also fun. Overall score: 8.7/10.