Ok, so please don't flame me for this--just trying to see if I'm in the minority here. 

I bought Need for Speed: Shift for PS3 shortly after it came out.  It's an impressive game, and I bought it because it got reviewed well, and most of my friends at work bought it for their PS3s. I love the graphics, I love the look of the cockpits and car exteriors, and they absolutely NAILED the internal cockpit view.  In my opinion, NFS:S was the first game to do this effectively.

I also had a chance to play the full retail copy of Forza 3 and I was very impressed.  Forza 3 has the slight edge graphics-wise over Shift.  The game play is fairly similar--I have been told by car sim nerds that Forza 3 emulates the sound and feel of each individual car better than Shift, but I wouldn't know because I'm no car nut.  All in all, I was very impressed by Forza 3.  Even the environment outside of the race track looked nice.  But in the end, I figured it's not a big enough difference.  Need for Speed will do; I'm not a big racing freak.  When I feel like racing, I have a perfectly good game in Shift to satisfy that need.

Today I played the Gran Turismo 5 demo.  I was surprised at how not blown away I was.  I doubt the retail release will look much better than the demo, so I'm assuming that what I saw is what I'm going to get, especially after this long of a development cycle.  The environment looked really dull compared to NFS or F3, the graphics looked bland and jagged, and overall, I didn't feel compelled to even finish playing the demo.  I was bored, and I can't believe they are taking this long to release this game.  I have a feeling it might be a turd. 

ALL THAT BEING SAID, I'm sure it will sell well and I hope it pushes hardware for the PS3, which is an awesome console.  I just don't necessarily think that means GT5 is going to be a good game.  After all, people buy Halo in droves. ;)

I just feel all the delays for this game were a waste of time. I really expected more from the demo. I think it was weird to play the demo in first person instead of third person. I think thats what really messed up the demo in my opinion.

Press select and it changes the viewing type to third person.

You dont think a packed blu-ray version of the game will look better than a 200MB download intended to show off the physics?

I have grown accustomed to really good first person gameplay in Shift, and I was really underwhelmed by GT5's take on it.  If you played Shift, you would feel totally comfortable with the cockpit view.

You know you could just press select and go to third person view right?

who plays sims in third person? That defies the point sorta

I really have doubts that the final release will look any better than the demo.  After all, they do want people to BUY this game, not just marvel at the physics.  Average Joe Gamer doesn't play a demo for the physics comparisons.

This is not a real GT5 demo, just a challenge with 2 cars, a boring track and professional physics... Still, I thought the physics and driving sensations were already the best ever seen in a racing game.

If you want to see what GT5 is about, go watch last TGS videos, which feature the best graphics ever seen in a racing game.

Or, even better, just wait for the release in 2 months.

weird... I thought GT5 still hasnt gone gold and is to release after april... and i thought demos release like a week before... i just must be stupid... FF13 releases in 2 months wheres that demo...