They're there from the very opening, an hour of cutscenes and tutorials that fail to introduce convincingly the mesh of progression, events and social interaction spread out across the map.
Instead, you're introduced to your player character - Gordon Freeman as voiced by Troy Baker, it would seem, who's somehow found himself trapped in a mid-noughties Need for Speed game - and the turgid story that underpins The Crew. You're framed for the murder of your brother, and in order to clear your name you've got to go undercover for the FBI and work your way up the ranks of the 5-10, a network of racing criminals headed up by a collection of bland racial stereotypes occupying each of the map's key areas. It's muck, and it only just escapes from being offensive by being so overwhelmingly dumb.
