Need For Speed Heat is a decent game.
First off the Storyline is a bit "okay" compared to previous Need For Speed by Ghost Games. There are a few things I wished they put focus on, which are the characters, we only got only one character to hate as a villain, where else in Need For Speed Most Wanted 2005 they focused on 2 that we hate as a villain like Cross and Razor.
After that Cross was brought over into Carbon.
What I'm saying is that most of the time the Story mode had me wished that we have a competitor or 2nd villain in Street Race and Sanctioned events, not just Cops as the Villain.
Gameplay wise, is a bit different compared to Payback. The brake to drift system is back, but slightly changed, due to focused on different types of handling like Grip, Road, Drift and Off-road. When driving or racing, you don't often feel like it's drifting all the time like in Payback, but the only issue I have is the Car feels like it just doesn't wanna drift this time when you made your Car fully drift built in Need For Speed Heat.
Cops on the other hand in Heat is a bit of improvement.
AI racers on the other hand, they aren't really that good, sometimes when're you're ahead of them, they take too long to catch up.. I hope this get fixed.
Graphics wise, it's a bit of a downgrade from previous Ghost Games Need For Speed, on Daytime, the graphics looks a bit shallow, it's hard to get proper photos on daylight in Heat.
But on Nighttime, the rain and Night looks great for the atmosphere.
Overall, it's decent game, I recommend you get it during a sale, the physics may not be liked by many, and story mode is kinda hit or miss. But the game is worth your money (on a discount) if you just want to have fun and chill.