I’m sneaking some time with this in between the half-dozen other games I’m playing simultaneously ATM.
I thought I was going to enjoy the free roaming environment but the game boils down to a copy of the original with the exception that you now have to drive or search out your next event rather than have it offered to you automatically. There is a feature where you pull up behind an NPC and a race automatically starts but other than that, I don’t see the benefit of having to look at the world map and drive to your next event. Online offers the same content except you get kiddies trying to run you off the road in the free roaming mode.
I enjoyed the original and this is fun as well, its just that I think the developers time would’ve been better spent adding more cars, events, parts, tuning options etc.