Anyone that played GT in any of the iterations knows that it's impossible to judge how good it's without some 1000 hours of love =]

You're completely right, since that's about the time that it took me to get 100% in GT4 xD. That's one of the things I love about GT games, the amount of content they put out is staggering.

Even GT3 (the less content filled GT game), lasted me for some good couple of hundred hours before putting it down.

still got my ps2 memory card as proof, 1013 hours total time in GT4, boy where those some great time. can't wait to unlock the full 24 hour endurances, with weather and day/ night. I could only imagine how that experience must be,

Well, I have only tried it out on practice, since I've unlocked the 24H version of Nurburgring.

Driving around the nurb at night...it's a totally mind-blowing experience. The sheer amount of concentration and focus you've got to put into a single lap, surpasses the amount you have to put for almost any full race in GT5.

And if you do it in the cockpit cam of a Citroen GT Road Car...it will drive you insane xD.

hopefully il be well prepared to face that! if it wasnt for my horse power advantage i woudnt even be able to beat the beginner series.

Nice review.  Really hits home the difference between viewing a title as a game or as a simulator - which I don't personally believe are the same thing.

GT5 represents the closest yet the PD team have come to realising a vision of a simulator on a console, and it that's what you're looking for then right now that what it represents on a console.

Speaking of which, after taking a diversion to finish off AC:Brotherhood I need to get back into this.

Speaking of that - has anyone got headtracking working well?  I had a quick try but iffy results.  Haven't had time to look up best settings, etc. and wonder if anyone has any advice in this area yet.

Can't help you there, even the majority of the threads and posts talking about head-tracking in GTplanet talk about mixed results.

GT5 is great but it has a lot of shit I don't like.

Should be more car customization, the B-Spec is complete garbage, the AI needs to be improved, etc. 

Other than that its great though.

In what aspect it should be improved?. It's to be noticed that the AI isn't the same for every event.

During the Extreme events and Endurance events, i've seen some of the best examples of race AI in any simulator, especially in the NASCAR event, where they use drafting in very creative ways, even going out of the way to draft behind cars that purportedly break out of the optimal racing line. 

I've also encountered some very creative over-taking. In the Super GT cup, racing with a MOBIL NSX, I had an A.I Garaiya JGTC car brake much too late into the spoon to get out much faster than my car and then after he overtook me, he defended the place instead of continuing to follow the optimal race line.

But in contrast, there are events where the A.I is virtually non-existent. Licenses and Special Events that make you go from last to first place in one-two laps have scripted, tank-like A.I, with the added aggravation of the immediate disqualification should any forceful contact happen between your car and the A.I cars, even if it's the A.I car contacting you from behind are the prime example of this.

I actually avoid having an bhp advantage over the rest of the pack. Even oil changes can mean an unfair advantage over the A.I's.

But the A.I does surprise you from time to time. In one of the Expert events (Polyphony cup), I went into it expecting the A.I to use the usual set of Sport Hard tyres....and they were using Racing Soft >_>. I was totally creamed, couldn't even come close to the 11th place car (I had a GT-R).