Forza 7 has a tendency to take a few missteps in game design. At this point the series has unfortunately gotten stale and after an almost disastrous launch, it'll be hard to keep fans coming back for an 8th. Its difficult to review Forza 7 several months after its release and not mention the immediate hurdle that the game had to overcome at the very beginning: those who purchased the Deluxe and Ultimate editions were furious to discover that the VIP treatment they had enjoyed in previous games was now deconstructed into just 5 mod cards that would give double credits, one car pack that not everyone cared for, and not much else. Turn 10 has since rectified this and has given all VIP holders instant double credits when completing a race, and not much else.
Gameplay is the usual Forza fare: customize the play style to something you're comfortable with and drive as best you can, even if you can't drive at all. The physics aren't as aggressive as they were in Forza 5 and feel lighter than normal. The total number of cars surpass 700 but a good 30% of them are locked behind requirements; ones such as waiting til the specialty vendor rotates them out weekly, completing a showcase event, or purchasing a loot crate.
Yes, loot crates. Those dreaded corporate bad ideas. In a smart move, you don't need real money to purchase these, just in-game credits. However trying to get a decent amount of credits without mods or increasing difficulty will take months. On top of driver levels there are also collection ratings. The more cars you have, the better your rating. It has no real effect on any part of the game besides an achievement.
Drivatars, one of the staples of the Forza series, is back and still sucks. No other words for it. No apologies for saying it either. I've noticed that while I play I'm against people on my friends list that have never played Forza 7, or have only played one of the games in the Horizon series. They're lifeless. They don't make mistakes. They're not fun. This idea has completely backfired on Turn 10 and the only way to rectify this mistake for the 8th game would be to have drivatars exclusive to that game.
Despite all the misgivings, Forza 7 has a short single player career mode, one that any player can beat if they put effort towards doing so. Unlike Forza 4's gigantic list of events (one that I personally didn't even bother trying to complete), the Forza Drivers Cup has 102 events and the early races only last a couple of laps. There are a few endurance races and these will net the player the most amount of credits and XP.
The sound design seems to have taken a step back when compared to Forza 6: car exhaust backfires don't have the same punch as they used to. Tire squeals don't sound as "on edge" as they should. The soundtrack is almost generic with guitars wailing in the menus. The announcer tends to be annoying at first but that's mainly for the introductions.
The graphics have unfortunately taken a hit with car textures looking like plastic on some models. Its geared towards the 4K texture pack that is used when playing on a One S or One X, otherwise its just taking up space on the hard drive. You have to manually delete this texture pack and you might as well if you have an original One console.
Forza 7 feels like the devs at Turn 10 got lazy. Besides the 4K textures, a few new racetracks and cars, the overall presentation is that of a half-hearted sequel. If the odd numbered Forza games seem "just okay" while the even numbered take things in new directions, I can't wait til they get their act together and give us something amazing again.