Shift 2: Unleashed is pretty nice. it's no longer sold and multiplayer is dead.

Shift 2: Unleashed, welcome screen.

Followed by a message that pretty much says online multiplayer is dead.
Shutdown date: August 31, 2021.
Need For Speed Shift 2: Unleashed (or Need For Speed Shift 2: Unleashed) is a racing videogame published by Electronic Arts in March of 2011.
unlike most games in the 'Need for Speed' Franchise, Need for Speed:Shift and Shift 2:Unleashed are Racing Simulators rather than Arcade Racing.
(They dropped the 'Need for Speed' naming in Shift 2: Unleashed to differentiate itself. lol)
Generally there are three main variants of Racing Games, The Arcade, The Sim-Cade, and the Simulator. Shift 2:Unleashed is somewhere between Sim-cade and Simulator.
personally, Shift 2: Unleashed is more of a 'Racing Car Cockpit Simulator' than a Racing Simulator and it does a pretty good at it too for a 2011 game.

What it would look like if using Chase Camera.

Replay Mode is pretty cool though. allows fast forward and rewind in realtime.

Starting Line.

Look at that ridiculous blur, forcing your attention to the race.

Night Racing!, no weathers effects though.

better turn off those aids for a good simulator experiences.
The game is balanced around Classes and "PR" or Performance Index.

this Corolla GTS (AE86) is a Class D, with a performance rating of 100. PR can be changed via Upgrades.

You can also tune the vehicle to your hearts desire. it's pretty basic though.

Finally you can edit your vehicle's looks under the visuals tab.

Metrics. pretty cool.

Decent amount of maps.

I guessed it bugged for me. Did not play for a long time afterall.

$2,200 reward. when car prices starts from $50k
Overall. it's fun.
sadly you can't play multiplayer anymore. (servers are offline)
it's decent for a 2011 game, single player is okay.
but yeah, now in 2022 there are definitely others that are much better such as Assetto Corsa and/or Assetto Corsa Competizione.
I guess that's it.
If you read it until the end. all I can say is 'WOW'.
hehe cheers. 😆