For all those who believe NFS died after Carbon :(?

So I grew up racing the nfs series. I've played them all except the first one. But the recent games don't do it for me. The new HP had me really excited but I just can't get into that game. Two words: NO TUNING! You have to be able to tune cars and buy them instead of picking a car and a color, right? Also I've been able to beat all the need for speeds pretty easily but I just now got Carbon and with the tuner class I'm getting worked over. I went through tier one with a Mazda rx8 most of tier 2 with the Clio v6 but I had to switch to an exotic (the tier 2 Porsche) to beat the last few races because of the top speed. I used a supra and an Evo in tier 3 but even the Evo got worked over in the last races. I can own the checkpoint races but not the real races. I ended up switching to the SLR McLaren to win the last few races. Also with that car Darius and the Stacked deck crew were too easy. It was harder to beat the other races than them! Am I the only one that thinks so? Cause it seems like everyone else had a terrible time beating stacked deck? I'm starting the game again and want to use exotics this time but what cars should I use in order to not get worked over? Also any tips on driving styles? And who's with me that the nfs series has died?