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Burning Laps were my least favorite part of the series.
No wonder why there are only 2 burnouts on the 360 and a dozen NFS. That was the direction they took the series in :-/
They turned it into a race-centric Single Player experience, where you initiate the different types of races from the intersections. They also added drop-in multiplayer, where you can challenge others to the races. The part you would be more interested in would be the objectives and stunts.
They added Stunt Challenges based on the number of players in your session that are a lot of fun, and you can wreck players online like you do with the Burnout Revenge online. The fun part with that is that you can hook up a Vision camera and it'll take a photo and send it to the person you wrecked, though it gets old with people taking pictures of their ass or other unsavory things.
They've also got objectives you need to smash all over the island. Fun at times, annoying at others. You want a map for that.
Lastly, they turned the Crash events into something you can trigger anywhere for any street. You essentially just blow up right where you're at, and try to tumble your car causing the most damage possible before your momentum stops. I've had very little fun with it, but YMMV.