Okay, before I complain about NFS: shift (a small complaint anyways), I just want to say that I think this game is pretty good. The game is gorgeous and it's not to hard to get into it if you're not a hardcore sim driver (such as myself). I picked this game up a couple of days ago and I've completed all of the 1st tier races and a couple of the 2nd tier ones. 
 
I decided that I wanted to take my highly modified tier 1 car out for a race online to see how everyone else races and I was disappointed that no matter how many toggles I changed in the custom match options, every single race was with a McLaren. I even set the toggle that restricts the level of cars to pretty much 1st tier cars only and yet every match was racing a McLaren. 
 
Now, I can see the appeal of driving the best and fastest car in the game against other people, but I'm a little turned off at the fact that I can't practice on slower cars first. Needless to say, I didn't finish a single race in the McLaren and I'm bummed that the only way I can L2DRIVE is either lose repeatedly online or play the crap out of the single player to unlock the McLaren and drive it against the AI until I'm good enough to compete online. 
 
It sucks that this game is the first racer that I've enjoyed in a while and the online learning curve is too steep for me to get any enjoyment out of it.

I've always found racing games with unlocks have had shitty online. That includes Most Wanted. 
 
"How'd you get your stats maxed?" 
 
"O lol I 100% and saw the Junk Man" 
 
Fuck that. Only game with cars I've ever 100%'d was Burnout Paradise.

I'm kinda glad I didn't bother going into the Online modes. I can't imagine it's much fun always being challenged against a McLaren. Lunarbunny brought something very true up. Racers with unlocks tend to be quite unfair online.

i don't play races online because of the unfairness of the cars. one car can be the best in the game while others play with the slow car. the person with the slow car always loses.