Controller Settings Solution

[Crooked Snowman]

If you're frustrated with the bumpers for manual transmission, use the controller settings option in the steam interface (in the library, on the right when you select the NFS heat game in your library) to reassign the controller buttons. You can swap the button functionality - for me I switched "a" to be right bumper, and "b" to be left bumper to get the up and down shifts onto the actual game pad. I made some other alterations too. Made the game a million times more playable.

[Blurey]

The best part with steam is having the option for Button configurations, and able to share the layout with the community. It is the old silent gripe on PC getting your PC to recognise your controller.
And some games who even thoe they are clearly for console designed and ported to PC, do not have button IN game bindings. One of the biggest gripe i have with NFS.
So the saving grace is being on PC you can costumize these things.