certainly better than MNR.  a bit longer than i'd like but acceptable i suppose.

Wiki says "In Conjuction" and even the IGN page for the title lists the developers as "United Front Games, Media Molecule".

Still beta so I am sure it will shrink a bit more. Just remember how bad MNR was before they reduced it to 30-45 seconds, lol.

i don't actually, didn't get the game a launch.   ...but i feel like my wrists would be slit.

At launch I swear it was something like 45-60 seconds.

been playing like 4 races thus far, its.. fun. Charming.

Just not like ... 60€ imo xD. Yes I know the play, share, create thing is awesome (atleast in LBP1&2 xD) but i don't know... Don't see this becoming "huge" ;D

Creating a track is easy as it was MNR. It's fun to race but it lacks the physics and sense of speed that MDR has

It feels like Little Big Planet and thats a good thing

Small comment on the loading times:

Pod to offline race: 9 secs
Pod to creator: 8 secs
Pod to online race: 15 secs while searching for a game
Return to Pod: 9 secs

My hard drive is a Seagate Momentus xt 750GB Hybrid SSD

Well, since everyone is talking about it, I'll share my thoughts from playing for about a week now:

Positives:

+ The load times are much improved over MNR, more in the LBP zone. I didn't feel like I was ever waiting too long.

+ It has that wonderful LBP charm to it which I very much enjoy.

+ Battle matches are awesome. Seriously awesome.

+ HUGE variety in game modes makes it great. Isometric, motorstorm-RC esque races mixed in with egg throwing contests alongside all the traditional modes. Really cool.

+ Customisation levels are as high as I'd expect from a LBP game. I enjoyed the different things you could do with your kart, and the track creator is better than MNR.

Negatives:

- Too slow. I know you can tweak it, but the base game is just too slow.

- Framerate issues when there's a lot of stuff going on-screen (particularly in busily designed levels)

- Tutorials are too disconnected from the rest of the game. It's a problem I had with LBP as well. I don't want to have to sit through 40 minutes of tutorials and then try and remember all of it when I'm making my track.

Overall, it's a very solid beta though and I will be buying it at launch.

Remember people that this is a beta so the loading times can still be decreased before the final game launches.