Posted by me in the XT forums:
I'm really liking it so far, not as fun as island since noslide driving is kind of boring imo, but I absolutely LOVE the drifting physics. It's definitely taken me hours of play to become a decent driver, being that even though I can get through most easy tracks I'm still about 5 seconds off the top runners.
Driving without sliding feels a lot like stadium, only it's much more responsive at lower speeds and less so at higher speeds in comparison to stadium. The drifting physics feel completely new to me since they sometimes involve a little counter-steering and a lot of precise movements to keep the car straight, but maybe that's because my ps3 controller is more on the sensitive side compared to what I used to use.
Been in the editor today and got about 30 seconds of track done, but still feels very short, I can bet on most of my tracks being over one minute in this game.
It's annoying that some pieces won't fit together since the blocks are larger than in most TMU environments, but because you can place so many things on platforms the possibilities for slippery tech tracks are plenty. I think I might actually be able to create a half decent tech track for once that's not in coast.
Still, with one environment compared to mapping with 7 I'll probably try to explore every type of track with different lengths and difficulties. With the heavier and more loose controls though, I bet the easier, or at least more forgiving tracks are going to be the most fun and the most popular, even later on in the game's life. Bye-bye, perfect calculation.
Awesome environment in my opinion, perfect physics for competition and tight tech tracks with lots of sliding.