The die-hard will deal with it, the casual will never notice it, and anyone who plays online will be over it.
Offline the game offers exactly what is to be expected; a solid racing experience for both casual and hardcore gamers alike. The career mode is sufficient, and the standard features are all there i.e.: Race Now, Testing, Paint Booth, etc. Split Screen is even thrown in there for good measure. But ultimately, this is where the game begins to fall apart.
The good: The game offers a basic career mode that delivers enough to make it worth while, even if it feels sporadic and somewhat empty in the process. The driving characteristics are good, although they do have a bit of an arcade feel to them. Regardless, they still allow any player to enjoy the game thoroughly.
The bad: The graphics are way too gritty and lack polish. This is especially true for the pace car, which is generic in that it isn't any actual brand and displays a quarter of the detail of the race cars. Caution flags only fly about 10% of the times that they should. Track status lights are almost always the opposite of the actual status on the track. Online play is almost completely unbearable. If more than 8 or 10 players are in a lobby, the race will load with 5 of them upside down, 3 unable to move until 4 laps in, and 2 actually racing. There are various challenges through the game, but as with the rest of the career mode they feel shallow and very much like a simple side note. The difficulty levels are almost a joke. As it is possible, on the "Hard" difficulty level, to qualify first even when hitting the wall in every turn, and then easily beat the field by 2 seconds in the race. Then "Very Hard" is completely unplayable. The A.I. have the tendency to bunch up in corners, allowing the player to pass 10-15 cars at a time, since they all slam on the brakes for no reason. The game shows "2011" on the cover, and was even delayed for a month, but still must rely on an upcoming update to upgrade it from 2010 content.
Annoyances: Celebrations are limited to 30 seconds and start with the car in the worst place possible. Cars have the turning radius of a dump-truck, forcing the player to do a 6 point turn to get back to the infield or start/finish line during celebrations, at which point 25 of the 30 seconds has already passed. After winning a race, the driver is shown celebrating on the roof of the car, which is no longer legal in NASCAR. The loading screen's trivia game is wildly inconsistent, if not flat out wrong at times. Drivers that consistently run bad in reality consistently win races and hold fastest laps in the game. Beyond the racing surface itself, many tracks are modeled completely wrong.
And last but certainly not least, WHERE THE *$&% IS REGAN SMITH? The game features several Nationwide Series drivers but excludes a full time Sprint Cup Series regular? Inexcusable.
In short, NASCAR the Game: 2011 is a racing game, and will let you do just that. But unless you are a die-hard NASCAR fan or possess the ability to look passed its many shortcomings, you will certainly be let down. One can now only hope Eutechnyx will repair this broken, half-completed game with their upcoming patch.