Criterion’s announced three brand new DLC packs for NFS: Hot Pursuit.

The first pack will see its release as soon as next week.

Armed and Dangerous will be releasing next Tuesday and feature two new game modes – Most Wanted and Arms Race.

Most Wanted is basically a chase where cops get chase down a specific racer while others try to protect him. Arms Race, as the title suggest, is a race where you’ll have access to weapons. Three new trophies will accompany the pack and it’ll cost 560 MS points or €6.99.

The second pack is a DLC car pack which will come with Cop and Racer versions of Lamborghini Diablo, Countach and Sesto Elemento. It’ll also include 10 new events and four new trophies for you to bag.

Same price as the above pack.

The final DLC pack, aptly named Porsche Unleashed will come with three brand new Porsche cars, 82 Porsche 911 Turbo, Porsche 959 and 911 Speedster, 10 new events and four new trophies. It’ll also be priced as the earlier two DLC packs.

There’s a trailer for all of the DLC over at Criterion’s website here.

Time to dust off your disk of Hot Pursuit.

EA and Criterion Games today announced a demo for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit which will be accessible from Oct 26 onwards for a limited period of time.

Gamers can enjoy the brand new social networking feature, Autolog in the demo which will allow them to challenge their friends for setting the best lap time possible. You can also play solo or invite a friend over which will unlock an extra track in the demo( Roadster’s Reborn).

In the demo, you will be able to chase as a cop in the Dark Horse Hot Pursuit mode, speeding through coastal highways and ridges of Seacrest County. If you download and play the demo, you will also earn 500 bounty award points which you can carry over to the full version of the game and unlock events and exotic cars. Good stuff.

“Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is blowing the roof off social competition and bringing excitement back to the racing genre,” says Matt Webster, Producer at Criterion Games. “We’re putting players and their friends at the heart of the gameplay experience by automatically tracking and comparing each person’s performances. This demo will give gamers a snapshot of Need for Speed Autolog and how we’re amping up the energy of intense pursuits, competitive racing and online connected play – nothing is more powerful than beating your friends.”

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit demo will be downloadable from XBLA on Oct 26, PSN on Oct 27. No word about a PC demo yet. It will end on Nov 9.

The game ships on Nov 19 for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Good chance to check it out before deciding if it’s worth it or not.

The video shows a cop chasing a… bad guy (?), deploying more cop car units, blocking streets and ramming into the opponent’s car. The cop utltimately takes the bad guy down, to trigger a Burnout style mini-cutscene.

The video can be found below:

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is due for release on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and the PC.