ok, i am going to copy and paste a small reveiw i wrote on another site for you, but you could have just gone to IGN or Gamestop online:
In my opinion it is the best arcade racer out there for any console right now.
"Ok, i finally got some hands on time with the game. And i must say that it is surely worth getting. It works completely different then i remember any of the previous titles working. You start off with a learners permit as your license. This gives you access to the whole map and some events to start. So you have the whole city right from the get go to explore. It is completely non-linear. You can go anywhere and do anything that is available to you. How do you know what is available, well that's easy. Pull up to any street light in the game, hold the brake then mash the gas spinning your wheels. Every one of the many intersections in the game (i think just one's with streetlights which is A LOT) is an event of some kind. Once it tells you the event you are pretty much thrown right into the action. You also have gas stations you can run through to refill your boost, auto repairs to fix your car, paint shops to paint the car and there is sure to be other things i have not yet found in the limited play time i did. The great thing about these is they are drive thorough, meaning you do not have to stop, you can do them all on the fly. The graphics are just beautiful and the driving physics are exactly what you would want them to be, top notch. The radio station plays a lot of the same type of faster pop music and harder rock to keep your blood pumping, i can only hope that they have a good deal of songs so it does not get too repetitive.
As you progress in the game and win races your license level will increase, opening up newer events and also cars. Now i have not gotten this far but from reading about the game when you get a car you must first find it and do a takedown before you can drive it.
navigation is the only real problem i encountered. It will take a lot of time and a lot of getting use to. You have a Small HUD with a small version of the map just in your general area. You must press the back button to bring up a full map. And trust me you will be doing this more often then you might like. Because as i have seen so far (unless i missed something) there is no way to set a point on your map and get a compass to guide you there. Which means you will frequently have to press the back button and try to look a few turns ahead to get to a destination. This includes when you are racing in a point to point race. Because unlike previous titles there is no set route. You have to find your own way there which i can tell you is a lot easier then it sounds. You only have a certain amount of time to make it so spend too much time finding your way and the race will end. The first point to point race i tried i did not even make it to the finish. I tried looking at the map as often as i could but one minute you think your on the right track and the next you have either gone past or took a wrong route and are way off. Like i found myself on a lower portion of the road and i could not seem to find a turn that would take me on the road i needed to be on even though i was pretty close to the finish. So i suppose over time as you learn the streets (like you would in a GTA game) things will get easier and you will know generally where you need to go to get to certain points as there are only about 8-9 finishing points for all races. And although the feature is pretty unique and after time i am sure i will get use to it. It does sort of take away from the flow of the game always have to pause to look at the map. You will do it so often that at first races will be driving for 30 seconds then looking at a map for about 10 seconds. then repeating that until you can reach the finish.
All in all i think this will be a really fun game to play and any Burnout or arcade racer fan will have a ball playing it. So go out and get a rental of this one because i think you will be wanting to own a copy for yourself after you have a go at it."
EDIT:
"The online multi-player i believe allows you to invite up to 7 friends to join your game and play with you. The nice thing about the online play is unlike most game this one can be accessed from within the game you are already playing. If you press the start or back button you get a menu, you use the left and right bumper buttons and it will cycle through a series of menu's. One of which is the online menu. I also forgot to mention in the review that the streets of Paradise City also offer a lot of NFS type hidden passages. They also have a lot or ramps and jumps that you can hit. I found myself just driving around the city looking at stuff. And i did win my first two cars. One of which was delivered to the junk yard where your cars are stored and since they are always smashed up when you first get them that is appropriate. But no worries as there is usually an auto shop down the street and a quick drive through and your car is good as new. And from what i can see since there is no money winning all of the drive through sites i mentioned like car repair, boost & paint are at no charge so feel free to use them often. The other car they just showed me a slow motion scene of and then it came ripping by me. I had to chase this thing all around town and do a takedown on it to get that one in my junk yard. And no worries if you lose him because you will see him again if you just drive around a little.
And there is also a race type i discovered that is useful. It is called a "burning route" if i remember the name right. But you race from one point to another, if you beat the target time it will send an upgraded version of the current car that you are driving to the junk yard."
