The main Dirt Tour mode is arranged in seasons where a certain number of points need to be achieved before the next season unlocks. Like Dirt 2, there's the standard Rally, Rallycross, Landrush events alongside the new addition of Gymkhana and Drift challenges, although the race types that Dirt 2 introduced such as Domination, Elimination and Gatecrasher events are strangely amiss.
There are rally cars from various eras in addition to the buggies and trucks used in the Rallycross events. Each car is unlocked based based on your reputation level, which is increased by your race position, completed challenges, and unused rewind assists.
The courses have many twists and turns, and have plenty of bumps and elevation to rally through. There are various conditions such as rain, snow, day and night, and the tracks are either off-road, road or have small road sections interspersed within the long dirt tracks. I don't recall there being snow events in the previous instalments, but it's inclusion now seems to have a large representation, so much so that it almost seems a bit silly calling the game Dirt.
In some race types, your co-driver gives you assistance, stating the severity and the distance of the upcoming turn, so it's beneficial to listen. On events where you don't have the co-driver, you need to keep glancing at the mini-map and judge the corner yourself.
In the new Gymkhana events, you accrue points by doing tricks; usually within an arena. It is your aim to drift, gain airtime, smash signs, and performing doughnuts and spins, all without crashing. By chaining these moves together, you can gain a combo multiplier which is vital to placing on the podium.
The few game types feel like they are pretty much equally represented, so if you want rally rather than Gymkhana then you are gonna be disappointed, especially since some of the rally events feel rather on the short side.
The difficulty can be tweaked, although there is no direct reward for making the game harder. The reset system from Dirt 2 makes a return where you have a limited amount of resets, and you can rewind the replay to a point to restart from. Although still unrealistic, it means you don't have to restart the whole race if you made a mistake; so is a welcome feature. Basically, the difficulty and assist options cater to both new and experienced drivers, and it is up to you how difficult you want the game to be.
In terms of presentation, the menus are less pretentious than Dirt 2, but they are still a bit over-done. There are a few narrators to give you comments or introductions to the races, but they are almost instantly annoying. One guy speaks in a 'street' style, throwing in Mexican words like compadre and amigo, and constantly plugs Youtube. There is an option to send replays to Youtube, but to be constantly told “your fans will go nuts when they see that. Let's post it on Youtube”; is simply annoying. The main comments are almost good-cop, bad-cop style where one person will complement you, but the other will tell you not to get ahead of yourself. The majority of their comments sound like you are insecure and need the boost which is ill-fitting and just sounds ridiculous.
There's a variety of camera angles including an inside-cockpit view. This view is quite frustrating to use though since the driver seems too low down in his seat, meaning the steering wheel obscures a significant amount of your view. The over the bonnet view was my preferred angle, giving high visibility but retaining the in-car feel.
Dirt 3 has also made the transition of trying to sell you DLC. The main menu is constantly reminding you that content is available on the marketplace, and in each season, there is always one event that you have to purchase to play. There's plenty of content in the game to keep you busy without purchasing extras, but I would prefer not to see greyed out options in my game. If it's an expansion, then it shouldn't appear in my in game menu, and not make me feel like I can't complete the game without paying the extra money.
Sometimes when a sequel is made, you just want more of the same. If you do get more of the same, sometimes it just feels stale because it's lost its originality. I think my enjoyment of this game was partially hindered by playing the previous Dirt games, but I'm also fairly convinced that the actual content was better and more varied in the previous installments. The game is still a great racing game, but if you have played the previous games, then it's most likely going to feel like a disappointment.