Got this on the 360 yesterday, so got lumbered with the thumb-twiddler. To be fair, the amount of opposite lock I'm chucking in makes the analogue stick really quite useful to control the car(s) well - much more 'in control' than say on Forza 3 where I find I'm correcting then over-correcting a lot on the corners.
Jumped straight into the single player blat on Kenya with a Metro 6R4. Intiial impressions? Average at best. The whole car 'speed' felt like you were in a speeded-up Benny Hill sketch. It just didn't feel remotely realistic - more Wipeout than rallying. I stuck with it, changing cars but staying on the same Kenyian stage. The slower cars felt much better to drive, my favourite so far being the Integrale HF. I'd left the control settings to Intermediate until then and decided to have a go on Pro, again with the Integrale at Kenya. The result? 19 seconds taken off my time - lol. Pro is the way to go - it really is. The cars feel a lot more fluid with the assists off and predictable to boot. The 'assists' actually hampered a lot of quick progress imo - especially that throttle management control. Not needed!
I might get this for the PC, just for the increased eye-candy options and possibly the G25 input. But the 360 controller does work well with this, so I'm a little unsure.
8/10 from me.
D.