A decent start and falling steadily
With the new fixes, you still have the great graphics and decent single player gameplay. Also contained among the fixes are a whole new group of bugs that make this game an absolute bear to play.
The first fix made (and still makes) the game freeze up whenever you try to change cars between races. I like to change cars between races because the same paint scheme gets rather boring after a while.
The second fix, while it gave us some great content including 2011 season cars and the newly repaved Daytona Speedway, mad the AI laughable. I race on medium difficulty and can qualify on pole and win most races by AT LEAST 20 seconds.
Another problem I am trying to figure out has to do with online. Why is it so bad? It is a complete joke! I am still amazed that I can get around Daytona in 10 seconds according to the online timing program. If that were the case, I would have had to average 800 miles per hour. That is nearly 600 mph over what an actual stock car can do.
In summary, if you have yet to update this game, don't! Racing online is not worth it. If you have yet to buy this game, don't! NASCAR 2011 is yet another unfortunate example of what well meaning, but inept game designers are capable of when they "try" to fix small bugs by making them bigger.