There is a series of dialogue early on in NFS: Unbound in which right after weaving in and out of traffic at 160 mph and putting hundreds of virtual civilians lives in danger on my way to winning an illegal street race and then forcing a cop to smash into concrete barrier at high speeds to escape his pursuit, a radio host comments on government corruption by noting that the mayor recently got a speeding ticket for going 45 in a school zone to which my protagonist responds by calling the mayor a hypocrite for trying to crack down on illegal street racing while speeding herself. This clumsy attempt at social awareness clashes severely with the fact that we are playing a game centered around illegal street racing and if you try to bring in any real sense of ethics or morality into the game, we are the clearly the bad guys as we endanger many a civilian for nothing more than money and a quick thrill. Social commentary is fine in gaming, but it's hard to make comments about the criminal justice system while the protagonist is doing blatantly reprehensible things. This is no Robin Hood-esque tale, we are not stealing bread to feed our family - we are just racing for money and because we like it - and being an orphan doesn't give you carte blanche to break the law. Sadly a large chunk of the dialogue in this game suffers from this same dissonance which prompted me to turn the dialogue volume down to where it wouldn't distract me from the main attraction which is the racing. And just as it should be, this is where the game shines. I'd also like to add that the street art style effects that burst out of your car when you drift, use nitrous, or generally do anything cool are surprisingly effective and add a kineticism and punchiness to the already action packed gameplay. The truth is though that the racing game market is pretty saturated and while this game is fun, it doesn't hold a candle to Forza Horizon 4 which came out 4 years earlier.