I bought this on a whim from Amazon during their Black Friday sale, figuring I couldn't go wrong with $29.99 since I did enjoy the demo. My hesitance for picking it up at full price came from the fact that I simply am not that big of a fan of racers these days, even arcade ones; I tend to stick to RPGs and shooters. I've had fun with a few in the past (namely Burnout 3 and, ironically, Hot Pursuit 2) but for whatever reason I've just lost interest in the genre over the last five or so years.
That said, I'm fucking loving Hot Pursuit, easily worth the purchase. This is the first racing game I've purchased this gen and it feels like I picked the right one to jump on. Criterion gets praise from me for the interface design alone, these are some slick lookin' menus :lol I thought Reach couldn't be beat for menu design, but Criterion is really giving Bungie a run for their money here.
Dunno I'm going to even bother giving the mutliplayer a try, but man Criterion did a great job breathing life into the series.