Yeah the social stuff is a risk for sure. If it's anything like Steep in that regard they're really, REALLY gonna cram that social aspect down your throat.
You're gonna connect and play with/against other people wether you want to or not.
It's super dumb because the social thing is actually bullshit, it's all about being "social", but you can't even chat, there's not even a simple text chat on PC or anything, so you're just there doing dumb emotes and dances with no way of talking with other players... yeah, that's social for sure.
Also about people saying this looks more like THPS / SSX, you should really lower your expectation, given how "social", friendly, casual it wants to be, I'm pretty sure it won't have much depth in its gameplay and like Steep, the scoring will be pretty random without much skills being involved. Someone with 10 hours in Steep will basically have the same level as someone with 150 hours.
I did like Steep for its atmosphere though, it was relaxing and there really was something about exploring these giant mountains, even just walking around in some places, alone, like if you were doing some hiking, was nice. But the gameplay, the depth, the scoring, was extremely lacking, there really wasn't anything to master and it was just for some random quick fun, but nothing else, which, as a SSX / Tony Hawk fan, is something I don't really like, because it gives no reason to play it on long term, and it's really not as fun.
That's why I think Riders Republic will be similar, it will be for some quick instant fun, but if you actually want to really play the game, there won't be much depth to it and you will quickly get bored. And like some people say, I fear that Riders Republic might not have that relaxing / pure feeling that Steep had for it, which was its best thing, here it seems more about "hype hype cool hype", so we'll see.
Not saying it will be "bad", but I'm sure it will be lacking if you expect too much.