Need for Speed Heat

NFS: Heat iz a free-roam racer with three major race types: Circuit, Sprint, Off Road. There are subvariants like Heat Races where you bet your money for Rep multiplier against the police NPCs that will bust you and your car, taking money and rep if you're caught.

Its major failing is a lack of depth for those uninterested in exploring and enjoying its map. There's no "quick race" menu to jump straight into a Circuit, Sprint, or Off Road race as far as I can tell. You can 'fast travel' to safehouse's you've unlocked to get yourself closer, but this involves the map. Similarly matchmaking online means entering into a 'Lobby' where you share the overworld. Maybe you'll get lucky and someone will trigger a "challenge all" invitation for you to join their race, or you'll initiate one and get people to bite. Otherwise, since there's no race browser or queue available within the game, you'll be left to roam and race CPUs.

If you do enjoy its overworld, you'll find plenty to enjoy. The map iz varied, with hidden unlockables, time trials, drift challenges, and 100+ cars to customize; you can truly tune each car to your preferred specifications, road-race, drift-car, circuit-monster, bruiser-cop-destroyer. So if you can stomach its lack of intuitive and modern UI, and appreciate the map, you'll find here a very addictive racer that mirrors Burnout: Paradise with an all new iconic beach-side-and-valley locale through Palm City.

Unfortunately, NFS: Heat's soundtrack iz event and time-of-day locked, grouped by either Day-Free-Roam & Day-Event or Night-Free-Roam & Night-Event. There's no way to customize this either, which means if you dig certain free roam tracks you'll never hear them during a race, or vice versa. Bummer.