Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

Codemasters' third instalment of Colin McRae's race series (NOT Ken Block's!) Dirt 3, although more commercialized, is a fast and challenging rally experience. If you've played the previous Dirt games, you're going to find the game series has become simplified, but certainly no walkover.
To start, I've gotta say that the YouTube addition is just not worth it. Sure, I get that Codemasters are trying to amp-up the game's social status by getting people talking about the game on-line, but really, besides the odd gamer who actually knows how to play, it's probably just going to publicise n00bs playing on a low dif who just want attention. But the most annoying flaw it has is that you're told to "upload your footage to YouTube" all the friggin' time.
It's also annoying to see the car tuning options in the game are now just 5 notches that cover Gear Ratio, Down-force, Suspension, Ride-Height, Differential and Brake Bias. In the first Dirt (aahhhh, those were the days) the tuning options were so lengthy, you needed to have a background in mechanics to not ask the info provider what each option changes. So many options, great!!!! It's kind of true for the difficulties too; you can change the over-all difficulty, which is not sensitive enough (there's like an 8sec different between each difficulty) and why is there an auto steer in ANY bloody racing game?? It's a racing game; steer the car!! Same for "corner breaking," and "throttle management," learn to play!!
The car variety is too narrow minded. When you want to race, you are sometimes only given the option of one car. Why can't we get more? BUT THE WORST PROBLEM is by far the fact that there are too many DLC that is part of the game rather than an addition! It's like you buy the game and pay for the other half. Why can't I just finish a race series without having to pay for one more race!! Stupid!!!
Having said that, the crashers are awesome; there's sometimes an impossibly fine line between winning and barrel rolling around the corners. Gymkhana is fun, I don't like Block more than McRae, but it's great for mastering car control (what the whole game's about) and it's hard to get sick of it. And the soundtrack is so awesome to listen to, whether it's bass or hard rock, it really flows with the games aesthetic. Speaking of, the look of the game is great too. Every time you ask for car details, the car drifts straight towards the camera and then stops on slow motion, allowing you to pan around at your own leisure. It's really kind of innovative to display cars this way (at least I've never seen it before).
As you can tell I've kind of slammed the game, but I still play it. It's challenging (level 6 difficulty is just insane), it's dramatic and it's cool. It has a list of issues that revolve around the games industry being simpler for more none gamers to be encouraged to play, but I wouldn't let this stop anyone from giving it a crack. It may be commercialized, cash desperate and overly simplified, but it's damn fast and a great challenge.