With Criterion Games they acquired a real gem of a dev team, after Burnout Paradise I was curious what they would bring to NFS, and NFS Most Wanted 2 became my favorite racing game of all time. I was waiting years for a successor to come even close to its (multiplayer) fun, but it never came.

And by God, I bought quite a few NFS after that...

As often the case, EA obviously destroyed the spirit of the company when they integrated them, many of the talents left shortly after iirc