And even though the 2010 E3 Expo passed by without any news on a new Need for Speed from the British developer, a hot rumor started circulating the net yesterday, getting people excited about Need for Speed Shift 2.

It all started with Chris Mcclure’s LinkedIn profile in which Mcclure, former senior programmer at Slightly Mad Studios, claimed to have worked on Need for Speed Shift 2 among other titles.

Atari has released seven new previews of their upcoming Test Drive Unlimited 2 title that is due to be released this (northern hemisphere) fall.

The new previews show several new cars including a first look at the car’s cockpits and a first glimpse at night racing.

Developed by Eden Games, Test Drive Unlimited 2 will enable players to race on the fully-modelled Balearic island of Ibiza. The island is 571.04 square kilometers in size and will feature over 20,000 kilometers of drivable roads.

The "modding" community for Need for Speed are pretty impressive.  The handling models have been worked over and now cars are being released.  It shows the dedication and capabilities of the talent in the user community.

Cric has released the Ferrari F10 Formula One car for Need for Speed Shift, adding Ferrari’s current challenger for the Formula One world championship to the popular title.

The F10 download weighs less than 5mb, comes with sounds from Kazumi and is included as a Tier 4 car – The first ever open-wheeler in Slightly Mad Studio’s title. Below is a short video for you to enjoy, showing the Italian F1 car in action.

Driven by Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, the F10 is Ferrari’s 56th Formula One car. The car proved to be an instant success, helping Alonso to win the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Features include:

- Facebook/Twitter support
- A huge selection of authentic licensed vehicles as well as thousands of parts enable you to turn your car from happy cruiser to snarling beast
- Compete in a host of exciting new races as well as classic game modes.
- Create a street racing legend with RPG-style progression as you tailor your driver and game play experience with solo and multiplayer races

A release date has yet to be announced. For now, here’s their new trailer and some screenshots.

EA & Slightly Mad Studios will be released the Ferrari Racing Series download-content pack for the Xbox 360 version of Need for Speed Shift, adding ten Ferrari sports cars to the game.

The pack will include the Ferrari FXX, the California,  the 599 GTB Fiorano, the F50 GT and the F430 as well as other Ferrari road cars. Furthermore, the pack will add the Ferrari World Tour to the game’s career mode.

Unfortunately, all of this will be limited to the Xbox 360 version of Shift as the DLC won’t be available for the PC and Playstation 3 versions. As explained by Ferrari, this decision is due to the fact that EA owns no license to produce Ferrari-content for the PC and Playstation 3 versions of the game.

The Xbox version of the pack is made possible thanks to a sub-license with Microsoft, limiting the pack to their platform.

From VirtualR

The pack will bring ten Ferrari sports cars to Shift, including the Ferrari FXX, the California,  the 599 GTB Fiorano, the F50 GT and the F430 both as GTC and Spyder version. Furthermore, the pack will add the Ferrari World Tour to the game’s career mode.