Ok, ive played the game on the SP now.
Some points:
1. Impressive graphics, i didnt notice any problems in frame rate, and collision is pretty good. Its also impressive that they managed to put other cars on screen at the same time, Its a shame that only the player's car is polygonal, as the opponents have sprite cars. The cars' wheels dont rotate all that much, They should rotate as much as the cars in Colin McRae. Small niggles.
First time i got into a race it had a good feel to it, graphics wise. Nice rain effect, good sense of speed, not incredibly fast, but thats good, I'd rather have more realistic steady speed than stupid over the top turbo speed (Sega Rally).
2. No replay? I think it would have been a neat feature on such a good looking racer.
Now to the very bad stuff.
It uses the same driving system as V-Rally, which is bad. Its fake. For those that have noticed, V-Rally (and Top Gear) dont actually let you 'drive' the car, you actually drive the camera. Which is why the first person (cockpit) view feels more realistic.
If you want to try this for yourself, go into time trial mode on top gear and drive steady while switching between car and cockpit view, you will notice that the camera stays the same, the car just pops up.
Another way to feel it is to drive around in 3rd person view (outside car view) and pretend the car is not there, just pay attention to the track, especially if you look just under the car, when you steer, you are actually pointing the camera where to go.
That is really disappointing for me,especially after games like Colin McRae that have true driving game engines, where all the wheels rotate and the wheels decide where the car goes.