In a nutshell
Pros:
1. Multiple types of races available
2. Wide selection of vehicles
3. Cops on steroids at night
4. Vehicle damage added
5. Tonnes of vehicle customisation available
6. Option to select difficulty level
7. Good attention to details
8. Wide range of player characters (both male/female) to select and customise.
9. Can choose to play Solo(bots with Easy/Med/Hard difficulty)/Friends (Party Play, up to 8 friends per party)/Multiplayer (16 players per server) .
10. Car swap support before race/event start (need not travel to garage to change cars).
11. June update adds cross-play support, i.e You can play on PC and your friends can play with you using xbox or Playstation on same server.
Cons:
1. No more game updates, crossplay was the last
2. A bit short in-game story.
3. Need to have origin account as well to play the game.
4. Cops are noob/hungover during day time, probably due to the steroids they had at night lol
5. Easy/Medium/Hard difficulty level only applies to races, not to Cops. Cops always remain on steroids at night and hungover during day.
6. No cockpit camera view.
In detail review
The Game basics
The game runs in both day and night time. Day time races gives money, night time races give reputation/rep.
Day time is when legal, closed street road racing happens and You get money for placing 1st. This is needed for buying new cars and upgrading/customising them. Cops are present in day mode, but they are noob/hungover due to night steroids.
Night time is where illegal street racing happens. These races give reputation which helps in moving ahead in story line and unlocking parts. Cops in the night time are on steroids.
Race Types:
The game has off-road races, on-road/closed road races, drift races and time trials. Each mode needs its own race settings for cars. A car tuned for on-road street races does ♥♥♥♥ for off road racing and drifting, no matter how good it is upgraded. So, if you come across a race event during free roam, just use the car swap feature to swap into best suited car for the event before the event begins. Need not travel back to garage/safe house for car change.
And yes, You can replay completed races again to get extra cash.
Heat Races
There is also another race type called "Heat race" which are available only at night time and unlock only when Your car heat level is more than 3. These races take place on map where cop patrol density is higher.
Each of these races give lot of Rep, and also unlocks "Ultimate" set of upgrades for your car (one part unlocked per race win), provided You can manage to evade the cops, i.e. their spike strips, the helicopter, the RAMs and their corvettes.
Please note, its not easy to get rid of them, no structures to collapse on them and Your vehicles take heavy damage during collision too.. Pedal to the metal is not always an option here, as their corvettes are pretty fast too...
More details on cops in "Cops" section below.
Customisation
Both Vehicle and character customisation is available.
Vehicle customisation is pretty detailed in this game. From base engine customisation to exhaust tip sound and everything in between. You can either choose to upgrade the basic/default engine or swap it with a different high power engine instead (and then upgrade this high power engine), but You have to unlock them first though.
You can select male or female player character and customise their appearance from hair styles to dressing sense. And each character has its own voice which suits them pretty well.
Cops:
EA games did one thing good with their franchise here, cops are pretty good and their spawn is very random and unpredictable. No structures to immobilise the cops, either pedal to the metal or jump across roads/canals using off road ramps, which if done incorrectly will give damage to Your car. Ramming into cops is not gonna help most of the times, as Your vehicle also takes significant damage on ramming cops.
However, You can add modifications to Your vehicles to evade cops. Cop evading modifications are split into two types, active and passive. Active modifications need to be manually activated and passive modifications gets activated when needed automatically without player intervention.
Active ones include Kill switch attack protector, re-inflatable tyres, car repair kit etc. Passive ones include Radar disrupter (which makes difficult for cops to find You once You are out of their line of sight), NOS boosts, modifications to give extra damage to cops when You ram them OR stronger chassis modification to get lesser damage when cops ram You, etc.
Although there are lot of cop evading modifications listed above, only one active and one passive modification can be equipped on the car.
One last thing, If Your vehicle gets lot of damage, You can drive through petrol bunks/gas stations to get it fully fixed (available during cop chases too). However, it can be done only 3 times after which, You have to enter safe house for repair. Safe houses are not accessible when active cop chases are in progress.
Multiplayer:
Ok, this is not something I've done a lot, usually I end up playing in Solo mode, but will share what I know..
So, starting with the basics, when You play Online, You'll be joining server with around 16 players (PC/xbox/playstation together), thanks to cross play support. You can continue with Your regular game play of finishing races with bots in these server too (Just like Solo), OR You can challenge other players on the server to compete with you. However, its on other players to accept Your challenge, but if they do and You win that race, You'll end up getting bonus money/rep etc. (around 40% boost over doing it on Solo I think)
Night time mp gets more exiting. If you are in a race on Your own, minding Your own business, and another player (elsewhere on map) gets into a high heat cop chase, he/she can bring entire cops on You, even if You are in between another race. Other players can take You out OR Your opponents, purely depends on Your luck..
Multiplayer Crew System:
Another aspect of Multiplayer gaming is, the crew system. You can create your own crew OR join existing one by sending request. The crew leader has to approve Your request, only then can You join their crew. A crew can have 32 players.
Also, crews can be levelled up from level 1 to level 50. Each level upgrade gives (to everyone in the crew) bonus perks in game, like bank/money boosts per race, rep boosts etc. Level 50 unlocks the amazing Ferrari fxx k-evo '18.
To level up Your crew, You have to either complete daily challenges or beat time trails done by other crews. The more members in Your crew, the faster the crew levels up I think.
This is all the knowledge I have on multiplayer aspect of this game, I might have missed things but this should be sufficient for You to get started haha..
Concluding..
There might be more aspects to this game which I might have missed/not explored.. If you find something missing in the review, please do let me know in the comments.
If you disagree with the review, please inform that in the comments too, but please do not be toxic in the comments just because You disagree haha. I'm all ears for your comments...
Finally, Hope this long review helps!!! And thanks for spending time to read through it haha..
For any queries, please comment on the review and I'll try to answer when possible. Thanks!!
Overall:
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Story: 7/10 (bit short, story can be finished within 15 hours of gameplay)
Customisation: 11/10
Attention to details: 10/10