NFS: The Run promised a lot, but failed to do so. EA Black Box Studios has hit a new low with this one.
First up is the gameplay, from the first moment you play The Run, you've been greeted by button pressing quick-time event style like Heavy Rain or God of War gameplay. Although not really bad, but I think it is completely unnecessary to include in the game, they can simply put nice cutscenes in it and it will be good enough. And then I've never seen a racing game so linear in presentation, in some missions where you have to escape cops or bad guy, you must not slow a bit down in order to "succeed" the mission, I mean why I'm not be able to have more freedom to escape them. During the chase scene, where you also have regenerative health, it is like "Are You Kidding Me??!!" moment, this is not even an FPS!
Then there is the racing itself, which is numb. Most of the time the races frustrate not because of the difficulty, but is because of the slow and unresponsive the car is, unable to avoid traffics despite the traffics are hundreds of feet away, it is particularly frustrating after Chicago. There was an instance I was chasing down a Lamborghini while on the way to New Jersey with a lot of cops pursuing us two, while the cops got taken out even without me doing it or putting little effort in it, the camera will then shift to the crash before continuing, my problem is that the car I was driving slowing down during that sequence and let the Lamborghini built a huge chunk of lead with little mileage to go, it is frustrating as it happens quite a lot throughout the game.
The story is particularly bad as well, it is almost non-existent. Before the release, the studio kept promoting compelling storytelling when there's not even one story there. They have characters, yes, but most of the time we don't know them. When come across Rival Race, where gamers are pit against rival racers with somehow some link with the protagonist, it was like "Who is that guy/girl?" and the game never really explain why they wanna kick gamers out of the race so much.
The graphics and sounds are the only two good points to be honest. Due to the use of DICE's Frostbite 2 engine, the scenery looks great despite some inconsistency, the human facial model looks good. The sound of the game is well done as well, with the thunder hammering down along the plains or even escaping avalanche with the snow plummeting down the mountain, it is very well made.
Despite good graphics and great sound design, the gameplay of NFS: The Run failed miserably. I recommend picking up earlier releases or wait for EA's next entries into the franchise. This one should be avoided.