When the original Need for Speed was released for PC my rig wasn't strong enough to run it. A buddy of mine had a system that would. I would go over there and play the hell out of it every chance I got which obviously wasn't such a cool thing to do to friend. I ended up doing a rent to buy thing with a system to see if it would run it, and then paid it off for WELL more than it was worth. To this day I still enjoy NFS.
I do agree with you to say that Forza blew it out of the water.
After NFS 2015, every nfs game after it didnt have "that"feeling.
Nfs 2015 is such a mood. You play it only at night, and you chug monster energy while playing it. You cant sit down and say "i wanna play nfs 2015", the mood has to be set.
Nfs payback was a fast and furious copy paste, cool story, but freeroam was boring.
Nfs heat, it felt like kind of a new game, the Miami mood was really cool, customization was top notch, but the game lacked updates from EA (who wouldve guessed), and i dont know why they didnt put drag races in the game, because the city literally had 10 parallel streets perfectly set for drag racing, also there were drag tires, and a one big shot of nitrous that you could put on your car.
I havent played unbound much, but feels very similar to Heat, the main diff i see are those animations while driving, and there are more updates added to it, compared to nfs heat.
Forza is literally the opposite, boring story and visual customization, but freeroam is where it shines. You have 700+ cars, weekly new car updates and cool DLC's like the Hot Wheels, or Rally racing. Bunch of cool cars, from regular traffic, ti heavily track-suited cars, to Mercedes-Benz Racing trucks xD.
In terms of physics amd pure driving, Forza Horizon outshines new Need for Speed, but NFS has wayyy better customizations, story, and multiplayer.
If im in a some sort of mood, i play NFS, if i want to drive, i play forza horizon, simple as that.