I played NFS Heat 100+ hours, mostly single player, and yesterday I bought Most Wanted (Criterion) to check what can I expect. Today I'm near completion of single player mode (In game time - 6h, but I think a little longer), and I can say its not even near Heat. I didn't search for cars, and I found almost half possible in game during those 6h. In Heat I had to spent over 10 extra hours to find collectibles, get some achievements and unlock interesting cars. And I was really interested in finding those collectibles. This Most Wanted is very, very simple, easy, I've beaten Veyron SS with Focus RS, totally not logical, and this game makes me angry so many times.
Please no Burnout this time. Heat is one of best games I played, because its really difficult to master some cars or races, tuning is important and can be fun in itself, numbers are not very important but for perfection every single adjustment in my car matters.
So don't go away from Heat, its by far better game than MW 2012.
And who calls a game "Most Wanted" 7 years after original? "A Criterion Game"?
R.I.P.