I genuinely don't understand why so many people are being so weirdly negative about this game. It is, in my opinion, the best NFS game. Period. I feel like a lot of people are just mad that the game has an artstyle instead of just going for realism like every other racing game ever made.

Also people complaining about cringe dialogue, did y'all even play the other games? NFS has always been like that. It's not a big deal. I won't argue that it's not good dialogue, but it's such a minor complaint for me personally. I don't play NFS for interesting characters and writing.

I think the racing feels super fun, it's fast and challenging. The AI racers play super realistically and you always feel the tension of each race. You don't just always win first in this game, you have to work for it and you WILL lose sometimes. I also love that you actually need to have multiple cars now as events are locked to car rankings, so if you have an A+ car you can't take it into a B race, you need to have a B ranked car. This encourages you to have a number of vehicles, instead of just relying on a single super car the entire game.

The game is also built around risk vs reward. Missions offer various amounts of cash, but also add various amounts of heat, and you always run the risk of losing it all if you get caught. Then you can also sidebet racers to earn more if you beat that specific racer. It all feels really rewarding and you genuinely have to think about which missions you take and when.

Car customization is in full force, you can personalize and tune your car in tons of ways, even down to the sound of the exhaust.

Graphically the game looks gorgeous, and I think the cellshaded npcs looks excellent and are so much more appealing than the models from Heat. The visual flares that happen are also really cool and stylish and always feel good. NFS has always had that flashy graffiti aesthetic but now it extends into the actual gameplay instead of just the ui.

Overall I think this game is absolutely fantastic, a total return to form the franchise. Don't listen to the naysayers, at the very least if you like arcade racers you should at least give this game a shot.