Exhibit A:

nfs games up to an including MW 2012

These are solid, enjoyable entries in the series. Peaked with Underground 2 and MW 2005, but the takeover/acquisition of Criterion pumped new life into HP 2010 and MW 2012.

Exhibit B:

nfs games released after MW 2012

These are dogshit. Heavy dlc, meh progression, horrible to play on a keyboard, stupid upgrade systems (cards? cards? are you retarded, EA?), always-online, shitty online servers, horrendous physics, so arcadey that they make actual arcade racing games look desirable.

You’ll note that this game is in the second group.

(I got it as a gift a couple weeks ago, they paid $10 for it, which I was holding out for >$5 to buy myself; it’s actually better than the last iteration, but not by much. That game - heat - I thrashed on at launch and 6mo later, and when the premium of whatever edition dropped to like $1.25, I finally bought it (10h demo before) and honestly, I want my $1.25 back.

If they hadn’t killed Criterion (the reboot is in name only, the talent jumped ship with the forced merge), nfs might be awesome still. They have to do a metric fuck-load to save this series. I have almost every game, I’m a massive fan of the series… But for the past decade, it’s fucking dogshit.