Forget the realism and enjoy the ride
I've never been the kind of guy who cares too much about graphics but F1 2010 really does a good job with the visuals. The sunrays flashing between the trees in Melbourne, the pouring rain and small ponds in Spa, it all looks good and solid and the framerate stays very good pretty much all the time. The cars also look really nice.
Sounds are pretty generic. The F1 engine sounds nice but it's not really fantastic. The soundtrack is very Codemasterish, with pop-punk and generic rock tunes. I was hoping for the race engineer to have loads of different lines to say during the race but he runs out of them pretty soon and starts to bore and annoy you pretty soon.
As for the gameplay, as I said, it's good fun if you're not too serious about it. The cars do have way too much grip and downforce but it's understandable given that the game was targeted for larger audience than just the hardcore simulation fans. I hope no one seriously expected the game to be anything else but this. The car upgrades are a nice add to the game and the fact that the team configures and sets up your car makes it actually more realistic. The AI is quite good in avoiding collisions with you. It still has the same faults as in pretty much all of the other games, it's very slow on some parts of some tracks and the movement of the AI cars looks very robotic.
In conclusion, F1 2010 is a nice game if you want to just have good fun. I will continue to play rFactor for my simulation needs and F1 2010 for my arcade needs.