So... Dirt 3 unlocked today and I could give it a very little play before coming to work.

I only raced a single event until now, so there's not a lot to say yet.

I'm not sure what I was expecting presentation wise, but felt a little dishearted with the end results. Feels like a Grid: Off Road game, with the tour mode being very similar to it and with similar menu voice overs from your team too. It isn't bad per se, I enjoyed Grid A LOT, but I was expecting something new or more akin to Dirt 2 at least.

The menus itselves are a bit residual from the first game, but with a layer of "cool visuals" added on top. The results are way better than the all white dirt 1, but I miss Dirt 2's more lifelike menus.

The only gripe about racing so far is the "run over this to win" tape on the floor. I like break light indicators more. I'm certain there's a way to turn it off, though.

What are your thoughts, people?

Yesterday I finished the first season in the game. I got the Tour mode worng, afterall.

It is similar to Dirt 2's, only they used some elements from Grid's Grid World. There's the racing for teams and your team members talking to you, but that's about it. There's no build your own scuderia with custom liveries afterall. And no money too... strangely.

The Gymkhana mode is a bit lame, in my opinion, but I'll be damned if Codemasters ever does a off road game that focuses on rallying/racing only ever again.

So far, I'm having fun, despite missing some aspects from Dirt 2 greatly.

How realistic is it? It seems like its being billed as a hardcore racing game but then there's a lot of little things I've read that make it sound like an arcade racer

Gran Turismo 5 seems to suck badly at rally style racing so I've been thinking of getting this to fill the hole

I was going to get it but with them bringing out new tracks as paid DLC already I think I'd rather wait till it's cheap in a steam sale (under £10) with the DLC. Always feels to me like a developer is taking the piss when they bring out any DLC that's less than a full expansion pack, so if that comes about then I cancel my pre-orders and buy them dirt (no pun intended) cheap, further down the line.

It seems about the same as Dirt 2 to me. I suppose you can get more real adjusting the difficulty settings, but I haven't tried anything.

I think Dirt 2 is the better game, and a lot of it comes down to presentation, but I also don't like the way Dirt 3 feels as much as I liked Dirt 2. All of the effects like water and snow are disappointing, and should have been amazing, given that they were some of the biggest improvements to the game's engine.

Dirt 3 seems more subdued than 2. Like it's too quiet, or something along those lines. It's weird, as though all of Dirt 2's soul was abolished, leaving us with a very sterile environment.

I'd go for the earlier games in the series (when it was still called Colin McRae Rally). They provide more of a pure rally experience.

Presentation is really the key problem, indeed. Dirt3's not bad, is just that 2's better. The weather effects didn't disapoint me, though I wasn't expecting anything otherworldly.

I also miss the somewhat cleaner, brighter, more colorful look of Dirt 2.

I cannot believe this game. It's like the developers took a vacuum cleaner and sucked all of the soul out of Dirt 2, made a few more levels, and popped out Dirt 3. Every single piece of the game seems worse to me, except for perhaps the *raw* visual quality. The menu blows. The sound seems muffled. The weather effects are really lame, like seriously, rain should be fucking devastating to driving, how did they mess it up? Even the water from puddles splashing up onto your windshield is worse than in Dirt 2. The soundtrack is really, really boring. We have the same sort of bro-like chatter between races, even though we're looking at floating triangular prisms instead of people at a racing event.

I'm gonna puke!

Am I odd for passing on an early purchase of this because it has no boxed version?

Not really. I bought it on pre-order (a first time for me) for 3 simple reasons:
A) I was in the mood for a rally game (and I love'em)
B) It would add Dirt 2 to my steam games list (I always regretted buying it over D2D instead of keeping on Steam like the rest)
C) I didn't spend 45 USD here on Witcher 2 (thanks to thewishingwell). So I had it to spare.