It was a mistake to name this game Need for Speed, but there aren't many other mistakes with it.
Let's begin at the beginning. The usual "don't try driving like this" warning is switched for "If you want to try such racing in reality, have your car inspected, use a safety helmet and your seatbelt.". This shows that something has changed at EA. After creating a profile, one can start the carrier mode, where a series of racing days and challenges make up a path to the five kings of street racing. There are 4 racing categories: grip, drag, drift and speed challenge, each with its subcategories. There are a variety of races, and all of these are done decently, even drift races are up to the challenge. The opponent AI is fairly easy to get rid of, although they can sometimes surprise you with a decent race. However, the game's greatest challenge lies in its simulator style of racing. You'll need to use those brakes pretty often and you'll have to watch out not to collide with anything, since your cars performance will decrease as you rack up damage, and if you total it, the race is over for you. Not to mention you have to repair your car before you enter a race, which isn't cheap at all.
Between racing days, you can tweak your car in both visuals and performance. The selection of cars is pretty good: there are about 50 cars, from various brands around the world, although there are still no Ferraris (shame). This time, there are more brands of tuning parts to choose from, although I see no difference. It's nice for those who love cars, although. Autosculpt is back, and using it, you can fine-tune your car's performance, since some of the elements of the car affect its performance (e.g. bodykits, spoilers). Those who love to pimp their rides with stickers, vinyls, special painting, etc. can be relieved: visual tuning is totally free now! That means you won't have to pay thousands of dollars for a darkened window tint or a cool vinyl. That's good news for sure.
Another thing I must mention is the Blueprint mode, where you can design multiple versions of the same car and switch between them in a second.
Pro Street's online mode is also above the average, although I didn't use it that much, so I can't speak much about it.
To sum everything up, Need for Speed Pro Street could have been much better if it wouldn't be named Need for Speed, but it's a solid racing simulator in its own right. Really, people should stop expecting every NFS game to follow in the footprints of Most Wanted. Pro Street is NOT an NFS, but it's still fun to play.
Pros:
+ Good graphics
+ Decent simulator game
+ Overkill car tweaking, visual tuning is now free!
+ Drift mode was repaired pretty good after Carbon
+ Solid racing with a variety of modes
+ User-friendly, not-cheating AI
+ Online modes are fun
Cons:
- Was named Need for Speed
- Forgettable soundtrack
- Gets repetitive
- Cars take too much damage
Overall Rating: 8,2/10