Another version for PlayStation Portable titled Need for Speed: Most Wanted 5-1-0, was released at the same time and featured alternative gameplay.

Most Wanted focuses on street racing-oriented gameplay involving a selection of events and racing circuits found within the fictional city of Rockport.

The game brought in many notable improvements and additions over other entries in the series, its major highlight being more in-depth police pursuits.

During races and the game's Career mode, players can make use of nitrous boosts to help give them an edge against opponents.

Unlike in Underground 2 where nitrous had to be refilled manually by performing stunts and earning style points, nitrous boosts now recharge automatically over time (as long as the car is moving; recharge stops when the car is idling), thus allowing the player to re-use it when needed.

Players can lose the police through skillful driving, making use of their special abilities, ramming pursuing vehicles and utilizing "Pursuit Breakers" – environmental traps, highlighted on the mini-map, which when triggered cause a certain number of police vehicles to be taken out of action, such as smashing through a gas station.

The length of time for this period is longer at higher levels of heat but can be decreased significantly if the player reaches and hides in special concealment spots around the game's setting, which are marked on the mini-map during this phase and are used to place them out of sight of police units.

A pursuit fully ends when the player successfully escapes the police, or is overwhelmed and trapped, and thus "busted" as a result.

An example of a Milestone can be the player being required to enter a police pursuit and then attempting to escape it within a set amount of time.

Police pursuits in this mode can occur in Free Roam, during a race, or from activating one in the game's pause menu – the latter can be done only if there are any Milestones yet to be completed.

Although police units will mainly impede a player if they begin pursuing them in a race, they will attempt to arrest them when in Free Roam.

If the player escapes pursuit, the car retains the heat level it accumulated but can lose this by either having its visual looks changed or by driving another vehicle for a period of time.

While three of these rewards consist of special customization parts and unique performance upgrades, the other three, concealed from the player until selected, consist of the racer's personal car – a uniquely modified vehicle – and two randomly selected bonus functions – extra money; impound recovery of lost vehicles; a "get-out-of-jail-free-card"; an impound strike limit extension on any car.

Completing specific challenges rewards the player with bonus cars for use in Career and Quick Race mode.

The setting is heavily influenced by cities from across the United States' "Rust Belt" and Pacific Northwest, with some resemblances to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

A task force of traffic officers led by Sergeant Jonathan Cross (played by Dean McKenzie) works to bring down any street racers, most prominently including a group known as the "Blacklist"  – fifteen street racers who have gained notoriety for their racing skill and their frequent and hazardous law-breaking driving and capture bounty.

The player, a street racer who arrives at Rockport with a custom painted blue and silver BMW M3 GTR, meets fellow street racer Mia Townsend (played by Josie Maran) whilst driving in the southern bridge towards Camden Beach, and races her until Rockport, where she inexplicably leaves as Cross approaches the player along with his female partner, and narrowly avoids arrest after Cross is called to an ongoing pursuit.

In time, the player rises up in the ranks, gaining enough reputation to soon attract Razor's attention once they become the #13 racer on the Blacklist.

Seeing him not backing down, Mia snatches the M3 keys from Razor, and when Razor attempts to steal them back, she subdues him and throws him to the ground, revealing herself to be an undercover police officer for the RPD, who had been working to bring down the Blacklist from the inside for Cross, by flashing a badge and showing her service weapon at the rest of the Blacklist.

In a post-credits scene, Cross creates a national-level warrant for the player and his BMW M3 GTR, adding him to the National Most Wanted List.

The cutscenes in the game are live-action videos shot with real actors and set pieces, and CGI effects are added to car exteriors and environments for extra visual flair.

Most Wanted 5-1-0 lacks many elements of its other console and PC counterparts, like cut scenes, a storyline and a free roam mode, and contains minor differences (including listing the real name of a Blacklist racer rather than his/her nickname).

It is a variety of music genres ranging from rap, hip-hop, electronica, and rock, sung by artists like The Prodigy, Celldweller, Styles of Beyond (who is known for performing the game's signature menu theme song, "Nine Thou" as well as performing another song called "Shapeshifter" with Celldweller), Rock, Lupe Fiasco, Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, BT & The Roots (who is known for performing the song "Tao of the Machine" that was originally in Blade II), Static-X, Bullet for My Valentine, and Hush.

Paul Linford, alongside Chris Vrenna, developed two original songs that play during races; "The Mann" and "Most Wanted Mashup".

[19] GameSpot praised the game for its "sharp graphics" and "outstanding sound effects", but noted the AI for being sometimes easy at first, and sometimes hard at later stages.

Praise even went to the cut-scenes and their casting, which usually falls victim to critics, saying that this mixture of animated, highly coloured FMV characters and stylized backgrounds is both imaginative and refreshing.