YMMV / Need for Speed: Undercover

• Aluminium Christmas Trees: Although not to the exotic extent of Hot Pursuit, Undercover's use of exotic and sports GT vehicles as police vehicles are quite similar to certain real world usage, such as Porsche 911 police cars in Germany, and the (later) Lamborghini Gallardo interceptor units in Italy, which has since been retired and replaced with the Lamborghini Huracan there.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Chase actually being a villain (and the game's Big Bad, in fact). Considering the disdainful way she tended to treat the player, by the time of its reveal most players already figured it out.
• Contested Sequel: While the return to illegal street racing was praised by some fans, others criticized the game for its cheesy storyline (even for Need for Speed's standards), frequent bug-ridden elements and various visual mishaps, such as bad frame rate and the lighting of the game being overly bright (to the point that the roads look like casting light) in contrast to how even the infamous "gritty yellow" daytime look of the fan-favorite Most Wanted benefited from the often cloudy and overcast climate of Rockport.
• Critical Dissonance: Undercover was overall disliked by critics; tuner fans, however, while still having divided opinions on it, were more forgiving, who thought it was a more story-driven Carbon.
• Crosses the Line Twice: All of the Busted cutscenes, full stop. The majority of them lean so hard into Police Brutality it becomes downright comical. Really, just take a look at some of these for yourself.
• Game-Breaker: The Nissan 370Z (Z34) was this in Undercover even in the patched version. While being a Jack of All Stats for a Tier 3 car early in the game, it can invoke this when fully tuned (despite it's sluggish handling). As a result, it's fast enough to humiliate the Tier 1 cars including the BUGATTI VEYRON! However, the 370Z received a Nerf in newer installments (While it becomes this again as in The Run).
• Good Bad Bugs: A rather infamous one: If your tires get punctured during a police chase, you can go to "Car Damage" on settings, switch damage off and on, and the tires (alongside any other damage received by your car) will automatically regenerate. While most people usually shrug off any other damage to the car since they're still driveable, regenerating punctured tires can be quite useful since they almost always ensure getting busted by the police.
• Ham and Cheese: All the actors playing GMAC's crew (but especially GMAC himself) seemed to be well-aware that they were playing characters in a video game's cheesy storyline mode, and accordingly gave very Large Ham performances.
• Memetic Mutation: "Very dangerous!" ^ExplanationLt. Keller's quote describing Chau Wu. The cheesy, but catchy meme has been used by the fanbase to best describe a context, especially among fans of Youtuber KuruHS.
• Obvious Beta: The console and PC releases were shipped with severe frame rate issues, absolute death in a high-speed racing game. The PS3, PC, and Xbox 360 versions of the game at least got a patch that (mostly) fixes the frame rate issues, but ramped up the difficulty of the races as well. The previous game ProStreet had some frame rate issues, too, but it didn't make the game unplayable.
• Obvious Judas: Many people were not surprised that Chase Linh would end up betraying the player, given how at various times the character was quite disdainful and stuck-up towards the player, even if her becoming the actual Final Boss of the game still came off as a surprise for some. Some even saw the character's behavior as so obvious that given her dynamic with Lt. Keller, who wanted to shut down the case, they thought that this was actually a Red Herring in which Keller would be the one revealed as a traitor, but nope, it was her.
• Porting Disaster: While the PlayStation 2 and Wii ports done by Exient Entertainment manage to keep the story and most of the vehicle roster from the Black Box main versions, these versions are viewed by critics and fans as nothing more than just cash-grabs aimed at fans who don't have a PS3 or Xbox 360 and therefore can't get the superior version. The visuals are worse than Carbon's, despite being two years newer, the frame rate is (amazingly) worse than the 360/PS3 versions, and the game's landscapes aren't actually new; they're actually just various roads and highways from Most Wanted clobbered together. On top of that, it still suffers various problems that plagued the superior versions (i.e. the glaring, shiny street effect). The only thing these versions have over the original is a surprisingly better handling model than the main version and the ability for players to drive cop cars in a minigame trying to bust street racers before reaching the finish line, similar to those in the Hot Pursuit titles.
• Retroactive Recognition: While Rose Largo is played in the game's live-action cutscenes by Heather Fox, in her voice messages during races she's voiced by Dawn Olivieri. Keep in mind that Undercover was released in 2008, a year before Olivieri would become more well-known thanks to her role as Lydia in Heroes. Dawn herself appears in the promotional movies for the game made to promote the at-the-time new Nissan 370Z.
• Spiritual Licensee:
  • The PS2 and Wii versions are the released, alternative version of Genki-developed video game adaptation of The Fast and the Furious that was never released.
  • Porting Disaster aside, between the graphics and its gameplay, some Need for Speed fans claim that PS2 and Wii versions are the fabled "Most Wanted 2" that the 2012 game didn't quite deliver. The fact that they use modified and mirrored versions of Rockport as its setting certainly helps.
• That One Level: Pretty much every of later races in the PS3 Xbox 360 and PC versions can be easily this due to beefed up Rubberband AI.
  • The pursuit milestones are aggravating. In occasions, the cops won't longer appear before you reach the milestone targets and escape without completing it. Otherwise, if you do so, the police won't let you to escape depending your driver level and worst of all, they're timed. The PS2 and Wii versions are not timed and you can't escape before reaching the milestone target save for one challenge series that you must escape in sixty seconds.
  • The PS2 and Wii versions has the "Outrun Carmen" driver job in Career mode. The goal is outrunning Carmen in a outrun race. Now the player requires to save Carmen by knocking down two of the three white Mercedes-Benz CLK 500 (C209) mooks. This can be really hard as she's far away of you and one single mistake it won't let knock down those mooks in time. And you have to listen Carmen's dialogue a lot every time you restart.
  • Also in the PS2 and Wii versions has a challenge series that requires you to escape in sixty seconds. Sounds right?. The police are beefed up to the point that is very hard to escape in time.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: More like "Took the Cheesy Video Game Plot Seriously", but credit where credit's due, the actors playing the game's main characters didn't treat it any different from an actual movie and seemed to treat their performances seriously (one notable exception being GMAC's crew), although Maggie Q's Chase Linh does go into Large Ham territory at the end of the game, after it's revealed she's the true villain of the plot.