The eleventh installment of the Need for Speed series was the first title to not involve illegal street racing; instead, it involves legalized, closed-track racing. It includes more than 40 cars including a few from American Le Mans Series, and was the first PlayStation 3 game with DualShock 3 rumble support. If you've seen the 2014 Need for Speed movie, then you probably noticed the Marshall Performance Shop crew are seen playing a split screen session of this. Unfortunately, this is where the franchise started to decline its quality and led to decent to mediocre games.
This extremely rushed game was made at the same time as when Black Box was making Skate and Undercover, forcing the team to divide its resources to develop multiple games simultaneously, which probably lead to the first nail being put in the franchise's coffin. By the way, Undercover is even more rushed than this game and even rushed worse than that piece of shit from Xilam and Ubisoft and Titanium they call "Stupid Invaders". The DLCs are already in the game files (most notably the PC version); in other words, On-Disc DLC.
Looking back more than a decade later, despite being barely playable without fixes, this game has aged quite well. The atmosphere and the whole "legal street racing" idea is actually executed brilliantly. It somehow makes driving on racetracks really fun. Even totaled cutscenes (especially in Nevada) are strangely satisfying to watch. Not even some Sim racing games can brag about this. The brilliant original score definitely adds up to it, courtesy of Junkie XL (who composed the soundtracks of Deadpool, Tomb Raider (2018 movie), and Mad Max: Fury Road) and the licensed soundtrack is also excellent, with some examples being Wiley's Bow E3, Junkie XL's More and Avenged Sevenfold's Almost Easy.
This game will instantly become very engaging to play once you fix those fatal issues and get the hang of it. By far, this is the only game in the franchise to have wheelie competition. However, note the unrealistic and rather wonky car handling, in which you're prone to understeering, no matter the car's drivetrain. Also, cars tend to wildly bounce for unknown reasons, whether you're driving or not.
Awesome graphics by 2007 standards make it look pretty even many years later. The smoke effect in particular is largely praised by everyone. The game also handled the notorious motion blur way better and in a more realistic manner than in previous games, in which it was exaggerated. Even car customization and Autosculpt have even been enhanced (when they are actually finished).
This is one of the few games that make manual transmission, clutch, and tuning actually game-changing factors. If one is to beat the game (at least smoothly), they will have to learn how to use clutch and tune their cars properly. Again, even some Sim racing games can't do this. Maybe a bit too demanding for an arcade game, though. Without the cameras being modded, you can get a lot of sense of speed, usually during grip races in straight lines and speed races. But nitrous is suddenly a fixed time boost instead of the normal boost that you can turn on and off at will as long as your Nitrous has not run out.
There are many cars returning from previous NFS games, including Hondas and Acuras (because this game features legally sanctioned street racing and Honda didn't want their cars to be involved in police chases, but eventually coming back and stayed during Ghost Games era, in which it had police chases). Also, the car list is vastly expanded, including the Nissan GT-R (R35), its prototype variant, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (CZ4A), BMW M3 (E92), the Lancia Delta Integrale HF Evo II, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 and the SEAT León Cupra as DLC. However, some of the cars are not represented well: for example, the Nissan Silvia Spec-R Aero (S15) is naturally aspirated and has a 5-speed gearbox, contrary to the real life counterpart being turbocharged and having a 6-speed gearbox. Also, it uses a right-hand drive "hood" camera even though it was only sold in left-hand drive countries. And despite being heavily promoted, the Battle Machine livery on the Mazda RX-7 (FD3S) doesn't exist anywhere in the game; also, the Nissan GT-R Proto can't be visually customized in the actual game, even though it wears a livery in promotional material. (There's even at least one AI opponent driving a modified GT-R Proto; these can be seen in elite races). Additionally, there are many real-life tracks featured, such as Ebisu Circuit, Mondello Park, Infineon (now Sonoma Raceway), and Texas World Speedway. Some cars such as the Acura Integra Type R (DC2), Honda Civic Si (FG2), and the Porsche 911 GT2 (997) are missing from the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions, likely due to console limitations; those versions also suffer from lack of content, downgraded visuals, framerate issues, and reuse engine and transmission sounds from Most Wanted and Carbon.
The chase camera's angle is terrible and the screen vibration is way too much and can distract you if you're slipstreaming behind an opponent or driving at high speed, though you can reduce or outright remove it via modding. And speaking of, like most other NFS games, ProStreet has mod support. One of the major mods is the Overhaul Mod, which fixes most of the game's bad qualities, adds new cars from previous games, as well as removing DLC restrictions from all DLC/Collector's Edition cars. Also, the "Sharp Driving Mod" improves the handling while toning down the understeer substantially. More of that, there is also game-changing mods like Handling Overhaul Mod, which contains all the mods, plus some vehicle model fixes and more. There is also (the now defunct or maybe M.I.A) Need For Memes PogStreet, a meme mod for ProStreet, which should not be confused with Pepega Mod. You can play the game with these mods while waiting for the real ProStreet Pepega Edition to come out this year (specifically around December 2022 and early 2023). Do not forget there is also Xanvier's NFS ProStreet MultiFix , which fixes many issues including the infamous "Post-race Continue Button" glitch. Since the servers were shut down in 2012, the Continue button at the race results screen became completely broken and requires unofficial fixes in order to avoid crashing.
The game adds a Damage System that shows you the car's damage. There are three Damage Statuses: Minor, Major, and Total, all of which affect your car's performance based on severity (ending at totaled). Not taking damage in a race grants you additional bonus points at the end of it. However, if your car is totaled (either by excessive damage or flipping it over), you are disqualified from the current event and the car cannot be used until it's repaired with a Total Repair Marker. Even though it's a pretty cool concept, you can run out of these Markers, thereby running into problems during events, especially if a really good car in your garage gets totaled, forcing the use of another car. Also, the damage model is odd. Although new features like parts falling off is cool, the wheels will always be untouched, which look very odd beside the rest of the car. The drift scoring system is also very inconsistent and buggy.
The announcer is a massive meat rider of Ryan Cooper, the main protagonist. Every time Ryan is on the track, he would praise him to annoyance, saying things about Ryan to the audience, even if you do things very badly. Even though the announcer was a fan turned meat rider, he had some iconic lines like the large-ham "OH YEAH RYAN COOOOOOOPEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR" line, and there is a moment where he warns a "blue car" (Darius' Toyota Supra RZ (JZA80)) with a "NFSCARBN" license plate to move away from parking in front of a stall, a clear reference to the previous game. One of the lines that the announcer said during drag races are a reference to Apocalypse Now.
So as you can tell, whether this is worth playing or not makes no difference to me.