You guys better read this, I've suffered a bit to make this post.
I've just played it for 30 mins or so. Its not for me but I can see people liking it. The "story"/dialogue is cringe level 900, they talk like no one that ever lived I've met in my life of any age and if they do exist I don't want to meet them. Its like someone watched Point Break + the Fast and the Furious and wanted it to be like that then they took amphetamines before they starting write the script. The humor is a mix of stuff a 16 year old would find funny but with a late-30s out of touch feel to it too, impressive.
Technically its both impressive and a mess, you can view this big map with all the online people and then zoom in and see everyone playing, thats cool, but v-sync breaks when you are in the hub and you get rolling scanlines going up and down the screen. The sync issue is probably just a beta problem though, its reminisicent of the AC:Valhalla sync issues on XSX at launch. The game has a chromatic abberation effect covering the whole screen and it would probably be sharper and nicer looking without it but no option to turn it off afaics.
The turning on the bikes kinda has this sluggish feel where it doesn't turn much until you get to certain point out from the centre of the stick and then it suddenly turns more, you have to hold R2 to go max speed but I don't know why you wouldn't want to ever go max speed, you press L2 to break and do powerslides and its kinda nuts you can turn on a dime so its the opposite of the normal turning in that way. L1 is turbo and it builds up over time, so you turbo, then wait, then turbo, then wait, which is a bit of a chore. It might be better if you could just turbo all the time but it made turning non-existent and that was the meta, the turbo refill rate and amount is tied to the bikes so that would mess with the progressions/(and I presume) mtx though.
Tricks default controls are bizarre with cross being backflip (you hold these controls) and triangle being frontflip, circle and square spinning left and right. Default landing controls are that it auto lands for you when you let go of the trick button but you can change it to be totally manual and you get a bonus for landing ok, good and perfectly, etc. There are a million customisation options for the riding and tricks so you can make it how you want but it was quite overwhelming so I just went with manual landing for tricks. You can make it right stick for tricks but then you have no camera control and a 3rd option where they say its "for steep fans" and you use R2 to preload jumps (I think, from the description, I didnt try it).
I just held down R2 all the time and then broke on turns at the last second but you don't really need to break all the time, only on really sharp turns and when you are going really fast after a downhill segment. It was the start ofc but I set the difficulty to maximum and came last in every race except one where I came first by a mile lol. You get more XP depending on the difficulty and since I was racing other players ghosts I think it was just matching me with the best times on the server when I chose max difficulty. You can presumabley race live players later on in the game or in the real game, I didnt get far enough to see though.
A really funny thing is the accessability screen reader is on by default every time you start it (or even go back to it from rest mode) so this robo-lady started reading out all of the on-screen text when I booted it up, including a really long message saying "this is an unfinished beta, etc" and I thought it was just part of the game was for 20 seconds
Its not
bad, but I didnt have loads of fun really. I got past every race no matter if I came last or first but that may just be because its the tutorial. The rocket suit flying was decent but a bit boring also since it was so easy, I got new bikes after every race so I could try a new event and the stats on the bikes are kinda nebulous.
I think if you like Forza Horizon 4 you will like this, feels like they've tried to evoke that with the "its just about fun! lolz!" feeling to races. I don't really have any drive to play it more, maybe will try more when my flatmate gets back home tomorrow so I can play with him. I can't be bothered writing any more about it now because I have to make dinner.
TL;DR - If you like Forza Horizon 4 then give it a go, if you like multiplater XP dopamine games you will probably like it.