Right then! This arrived today and I have had a bash this evening. These are my initial thoughts :-
Firstly, i've not played it with the wheel yet (T300), but will hopefully get to give it a go on that soon. That said, i've really enjoyed playing this on the pad tonight. I've left gears on semi auto and have left some abs on, as it was just a bit too much with everything off on the pad. I was soon competitive and then winning on medium quite easily (by around 10-15 seconds on average) so I could do with knocking up the AI difficulty now, but the driving model is really satisfying, requiring some careful throttle control and accurate steering. I've really enjoyed all of the stages i've driven so far (including the snow of Norway, the dusty arid landscape in Australia and the flowing countryside of Alsace) and they all feel very authentic, with nice narrow tracks and some great scenery.
I actually think that whilst the car models and visual fidelity are below the level of a larger developer (such as Polyphony Digital, Turn 10 or Codemasters), the whole thing has a great visual feel to it, with a great colour palate and some really nice lighting of the stages. There are some framerate issues and it's not going to win any awards on the technical front, but I do like it visually.
Audio is pretty good too. There's accurate and timely stage notes read out by your co-driver, decent atmospheric sound effects and reasonable car noises. Again, there's nothing here to really blow you away, but it's pretty good.
All in all, i've really enjoyed my first bash at this and am looking forward to playing it on the wheel. I expect Dirt Rally to be the better game, but if you are after a Rally fix between now and April, or you just want some additional Rally variety, then this is a good buy! After the few hours i've played on this tonight, it seems like a solid 8/10 game to me. It's fun and i'm glad I went for it! Here's a couple of vids...