A high point in the series.
In this installment of the series some off the old complaints creep in, career mode perhaps fealt fun at first but has a kind of unfinished feel to it in retrospect and the Kudos aspect although still there doesn't feel as harsh as it used to be which is either a negative or positive thing depending on whether or not the Kudos system was your bag. Personally I liked the harsh Kudos system, nothing worse than getting rear ended when going into a hairpin by someone that uses your car as a way to slow down going into corners.
Cest la vie though, what the game does have is seat of the pants racing in fast luxorious cars and amazingly bikes which are actually fun to drive and perform tricks on, from the straightforward such as wheelies, endos, to the sublime such as standing up on the seat and taunting your opponents as you pass them. In actual races if you pick a bike you realise that there fragile vehicles and you'll often just be muscled out of races with the slightest of touches putting your bike down but Kudos (pun intended) to Bizarre for going the whole hog and not only putting them in but making them an enjoyable addition to the series.
Multiplayer works well too, most enjoyable Live racing I've ever played. Myself and a few friends stuck to Team Racing which has been enjoyable and a different experience with every race. We've had very technical races with other players driving a more respectful race without rubbing to all out brawls with players literally putting people into walls/pitting them. The variety is certainly there, sure it stinks when you play against people that just want to play the game like Burnout all the time but when you get the better of them either through turning the tables on them or outracing them its very rewarding.
In my opinion this is the No. 1 racing game for Xbox closely followed by Burnout, graphics are sublime too.