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Content

Rating: 20/20
The main missions take between 12-18 hours to complete depending on your style of play. It took me around 25 hours to complete the story, get all the collectibles, and finish everything, excluding the prestige events. During my 25 hours of gameplay time, I even went achievement hunting for a few hours, and in my opinion, if it were any longer, it wouldn't be as good. If you're time constrained and can enjoy video games for a limited time each day, this won't require you to sign your life off and grind for several hundred hours. There's just enough stuff to do. I wouldn't want it any different.

Gameplay

Rating: 15/20
Gameplay-wise, this game tries to replicate what Underground and Carbon did well, alongside borrowing a few things from Hot Pursuit 2010 and The Run. Sadly, it doesn't do a great job of reigniting the flame of older games - but it does replicate what the latter two do very well. This mashup, in the end results in a unique and enjoyable experience on its own. If you're familiar with older entries, you'll see that the areas outside the city heavily reference the outside of the city areas found in Palmont City and Bayview.
Influence from Hot Pursuit and The Run is evident throughout the game too. Everything is too similar to these games to be a coincidence. The complete map, especially the city, seems inspired by the feel of the dark and the unknown of Carbon and a billion lights blasting around found in Underground. I love how the game presents the driving and drifting as separate entities. Drifting feels like Hot Pursuit, while the rest feels like The Run, and I love both. The police are unchallenging and useless. This game would be so much better without it. The rest isn't too difficult either, and there's no real challenge.

Presentation

Rating: 20/20
There isn't much to say here as Frostbite steals the show. This game offers one of the best-looking night racing. Frostbite is truly something else when it comes to visual presentation. It's just too perfect and delivers astonishing detail rarely found in other racing games. The sound design is top-notch as well. The soundtrack is pure perfection and on my list of top 5 soundtracks from any video game. I have zero complaints regarding the audio of this game. The sound department did its job.
Need for Speed delivers a spectacular and best-in-class animation presentation you could get at the time. All the cars are carefully designed and look great. The damage model, while not great, fits the whole package nicely. As far as the car controls are concerned, you'll spend a few hours learning how and why this game does the things it does. Handling setup is very important in this one, and as soon as you start tweaking and finding the sweet spot for your cars, you'll understand and appreciate it more. It's either drift or grip and making a car that does both equally as well at the same time is a bit tricky.

Story

Rating: 16/20
The story, I feel, was never the main focus of a Need for Speed game but something on the side you can follow while racing. It's rare for me to get sunk into the story, and Need for Speed delivered something special that I cared about from the start. The quality of storytelling isn't spectacular, mind you, but it's a unique enough thing that kept me interested. Everything feels a little over the top, but I'd gladly watch the hell out of a TV series adaptation of this or a similar story. I would've loved to see more of some characters, so-called icons you meet in the game, and that's the only complaint.

Technicalities

Rating: 5/20
Considering this is an always-online game, this is where the game-breaking issues start, and I'll name just a few I've experienced. Do you want to apply a livery to your car? The game crashes. Do you want to relax and JUST f'ing play the game for an hour or so? The game crashes or loses the connection to the server constantly. Do you have only an hour or so to play games tonight? Well, EA App has stopped working, and you must be disconnected. The servers are going down for scheduled maintenance, what feels like every 15-30 minutes, making you lose progress as soon as you're disconnected. It might be bad luck, but I constantly run into these maintenances. The finish line is never where the map says it is. Cars spawned from thin air or popped up from the road with the roof visible because they were supposed to be below a bridge or overpass. Random uncontrolled movement of the car while hitting anything, invisible walls, etc.
These are a few issues I've run into while playing the game. When it works, it works. When it starts acting weird, close it and try your luck later. During my playtime, the issues mentioned above were hit-and-miss. Sometimes it'd work just fine, and I'd be able to play it for several hours without interruptions, and other times it's a broken game. Performance-wise I didn't experience any issues, but it is almost an almost 10-year old game played on modern hardware. I'm throwing in 5 points here because the game runs flawlessly in terms of performance, and it's worth something. Otherwise, it'd be 1 point if we're rating general stability and experience with the game.

Final Verdict

Rating: 76 out of 100
If we put aside the modern gaming bull crap called: always-online - these big companies are forcing down our throats, the Need for Speed is one hell of a racing game plagued with one of the worst decisions a developer/publisher can make. I want to play the game I paid for with or without an Internet connection, and if someone isn't going to pay for it, you can't force them to buy it by plaguing the game with game-breaking issues!
Special note: As someone who respects, has admired, and followed Ken Block's work for years, it was emotional seeing him during cutscenes and driving alongside him in the game. This Need for Speed game is probably (due to expired licenses) on the verge of being pulled from digital storefronts in a few years, and once it disappears, the online services won't last for long, as it's usually the case. Once this happens, I'm afraid this game will disappear forever. If you appreciate Ken Block in the slightest bit, pick it up before it disappears. These few races and moments are definitely worth the hassle. Unless EA becomes the good guy and makes the game available offline after the servers shut down. Preserving games is important - and each game that disappears from digital storefronts is destined to be lost forever.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2921560652