Beautiful game, horrible driving dynamics
First, the good part - the visuals. Looks like only recently I was admiring Forza 3 for its graphics, but Shift 2 manages to surpass that, albeit at the expense of longer loading times (which are still not too bad compared to Forza 3). The cars look great both in the garage and on the track, and the tracks themselves look very nice, too. The tracks now can be raced during the day and at night, which adds to the experience, as driving at night can make a fmiliar track into a race full of surprises.
The car selection seems pretty decent, with reasonable representation from both street and supercar territory.
However, the game comes with a big spoon of tar in a jar of honey: the car handling model. Now, the model in original Shift at least tried to be sim-like, although with some arcade feel. Well, I don't know whose great idea it was, but they took that model and made it worse. During the first practice lap I crashed straight into the wall at the very first turn and had to restart several times before realizing what the problem is. And the name of the problem is steering. Perhaps the game is tailored to those lucky ones who have a steering wheel, but with the controller, once you press the thumbstick in any direction, it takes the virtual driver what feels like two second (yes, two seconds!) to actually turn the steering wheel into the position. That is unacceptably long, and the lag is still very noticeable even at maximum sensitivity. This means you have to start steering well in advance of the actual turn, just to give the game enough time to execute your command. Whoever came up with this must have thought this adds realism or something, but it certainly doesn't.
Next, the grip. The car slides. A lot. In fact, it slides so much that it often feels like you are racing on an oil covered track. I'm not sure if the creators of the game ever tried to slide a car through a long turn, but let me tell you this is not an easy task, especially in a properly tuned race car, and normally results in lots of smoke and ruined tires. The constant sliding and the imprecise steering make it feel like you are driving on snow, which also means you will crash. A lot. And with no rewind feature, and opponents which like to push you off the track, this makes you wanna throw the controller at the wall just after a few races,.
I am not even going to go into the experience system, upgrades and car customization - simply because when the driving is not fun, who cares about all this stuff?
Overall verdict:
Claimed to be a spiritual successor to original Shift , the game fails miserably in delivering a true sim experience. Stay away and take your money elsewhere, like Dirt franchise, which at least makes sliding around the track fun and lets you drive in actual snow instead of snow--feel-like asphalt.