Despite the long list of bugs, I find this game incredibly enjoyable and addictive.
I should say first of all I've encountered quite a few bugs so far, which should never have made the final release. For these bugs I've knocked off 0.5-1 of the final rating.
Bugs I've encountered so far...
1 - After practice on my 2nd race I quit and loaded up the game later on only to find my save data was 'corrupted'. Since the game doesn't backup your saves in anyway I had to start the season over again. If I was further in I wouldn't have been very happy.
2 - First time I was given the opportunity to earn R&D it didn't work despite me beating the time set.
3 - If you pit at the time your team recommends you pit at the same time as many other cars. If this happens your team will keep you in the pit behind their 'ready' sign until all the other cars have left the pit....EVEN if you entered before all of the cars and there is a large gap to release you. You have to manually set your pitstop to another lap than the default with every race to avoid this.
So now I've gotten that out of the way, there are a lot of good things about this game. It has a lot of settings for any kind of difficulty. If you want to set your car up simply your mechanic will do that with several basic settings, you don't have to twiddle around in the more complicated set-up of the car. For me this is perfect as I really can't be bothered doing such things beyond setting one of the more generalised mechanic settings. For people who are looking for a complicated sim they might have an issue with the simplification of the set-up to some degree. Although you can change a lot of things on the car in a more detailed manner it isn't perhaps quite as detailed as previous f1 games.
The racing is lots of fun, overtaking is fantastic and just as a general competitive racer I've never had so much fun. Everything is presented very well, graphics look great etc. Although I do have a couple complaints about the sounds, specifically your teams voice sounds. I find my mechanics voice particularly annoying. He says things repeatedly sometimes and also at inappropriate times. He also hasn't got the more pleasant voice in general. I'd prefer if I had the option for another voice, although I have to say the voice work in general in this game is not great.
The career mode is great, taking a contract with a smaller team and working your way up is exactly what was needed in one of these games. The interview aspect is fairly vague and irrelevant. Although it is a nice little addition I suppose.
Overall I love this game, it is lots of fun. If it wasn't for the bugs I would rate this game higher and I certainly think in future versions there is a good basis here to build on. Does need a patch though and quickly if you check the list of bugs on codemasters forum. If you want a relatively simple and enjoyable F1 game then this game is a good option.