I just bought one yesterday. Mario Kart World was too tempting.
It looks really good, but also bare bones so it'll need a lot of updates to make it a better game. I guess that's Nintendo's plan.
I'm guessing DLC is a guarantee, 8 cups is average for Mario Kart but we were spoiled with how much content was included in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, since it included the DLC of the Wii U version, and with the additional DLC, by the end we had like 3 games worth of content.
Character wise, there is a good selection already, I do wish that Nintendo would treat Mario Kart the way they treat Smash Bros and include all the non-Mario related IPs and maybe even some 3rd party ones. That might necessitate a name change but that might not be such a bad thing. They already put Link, Villager and some others in Mario Kart 8 and nobody questioned it so clearly it can work.
They're clearly running short on Mario characters to include, as some of the selections are questionable. (Really, Para-Biddybud? A minor character from a forgettable Mario game that I didn't remember existed until I saw it again and didn't even know the name of until now)
It would be far better if they make use of their other IPs memorable characters than include a bunch of generic Mario ones.
The selection of karts is good but it's a shame you can't tweak parts to change their stats anymore. Like, I love the look of some of the karts but I can't use them because I drive like shit when the stats are not right.
Battles could use more variety. Balloons and coins are fine and those usually are the ones I play the most but MK8D had a lot more battle modes.
But overall I wouldn't call it barebones. The amount of content is above average for a Mario Kart game. Not all of it is content that everybody cares about, the costumes for example don't do enough to differentiate from the default skins IMO so they don't add much value. But they certainly don't detract either. Additional game modes are nice, free roam is a bit empty but it's a good way to unlock stuff quickly.
