10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

Not as bad as people say it is, 16 Oct 2011

firstly, ill start with what has been improved/introduced:
Super Special Stages and Group B have been introduced and are fun
The car handling is solid this year so your car isnt sliding everywhere like it did on WRC 2010
And another thing that ahs been improved is the Rally Academy as it is a good way to introduce novices to the sport.

However, there are still the issues that have carried over from WRC 2010:
Poor environmental graphics
Road to WRC is almost completely unchanged
Majority of the stages are the same as last year’s.

so overall, if you liked it last year then buy it because you will like this year’s and if your thinking of buying it having never played this series before i recommend you to buy it because if you look past the shoddy graphics it is a really good game

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

No it is not Dirt 3, but it is a better RALLY game, 21 Oct 2011

No, It is no Dirt. But for me, Dirt has become all about eye candy, and has evolved in Dirt3, into pure arcade rubish.
The original Dirt was great. I completed it a number of times, on various difficulties. Even then, I would have prefered Dirt to have been a pure WRC style experience. Its americanization had already begun. For me, the graphics in the original Dirt were almost photo realistic, colours and lighting creating a very realistic atmosphere. The tracks were based on real rally stages. Dirt 3 is bright and pretty, but the rally content is weak and much less than promised. It has a very arcadey feel to it. If my German friend in his review, questions whether the stages in WRC2 are representative of the real 2011 stages, then Dirt3 is abysmal in that regard. With the exception of the Monte Carlo track pack, which costs eight pounds extra, there are no real world rally stages and they don’t feel like real stages. You are lucky to get a run over 3mins. Every inch of the WRC2 stages exist.
I can recognise quite alot from TV footage. Of course they are not complete stages due to the shortened time in a game. But every inch is real and they feel real and are very very interesting.

Now, WRC2′s graphics may be poor, but the car physics are pretty good, a little short on feedback, but the cars do handle correctly. That is to say, very difficult for Novice’s with the assists off. The sounds too are good, a complaint of the original WRC game. Tick over in the Mitsubishi evo reminded me so much of the older evo6 that I was a passenger in as a Scottich Rally contender threw me around a forest stage. Not perfect, but very good. The real cars are so noisy that most people would turn the sound down anyway. You need head sets to communicate in a Rally car. Sure you don’t see broken down cars, but you don’t in Dirt either.

Most of my time has been spent playing offline multiplayer with my family. Up to four take turns on individual stages or complete Rallys. The game keeping track of your individual times and positions. My whole family love it.
Force feedback is ok on the wheel. Not as good as DIRT 1 but as good as Dirt3. Use the bonnet cam to race for best results and realsim. If you need to see your car, you can see it in the replay of your performance.

There is a good rally school for beginners. Worth doing.

I bought Dirt3 on day of release. I have hardly played it. I paid for the Mote Carlo track pack which is good and will play that, but I am addicted to this game already. Its hard, but rewards effort. That four player multiplayer (turn based and no crappy split screen) is worth the money alone.
If you are a true Rally fan I say get over the graphics. It is a good game.