Just get the right gamepad
Handling: Do you own an Xbox? If so, buy a converter that allows you to use an Xbox gamepad on your PC. If not, buy a converter AND an Xbox gamepad. I've played a demo of the Xbox version, and I can't find any differences between the PC and Xbox versions control-wise. I think that the review should have commended the PC version for including the possibility of analogue control. (Compare something like Mashed on the PC, which, I think, didn't.) There's no excuse for complaining about naff keyboard control when the game supports gamepads so well. Compared to the price of a PC that can play this game adequately, the cost of an Xbox gamepad and converter is peanuts.
Framerate: I don't have any framerate issues at 1280x1024 (the best my monitor can achieve), with the settings maxed out (apart from textures, which is probably because my card has only 128MB RAM). This is on a P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM, Nvidia 6600GT. The framerate seems to be capped at 60fps, and it never dropped below that figure while I was testing it.
All in all, if you have a decent PC, you might want to get this version for the improved graphics over the Xbox version. The Gamespot review was right about one thing, however: the multiplayer on the PC sucks. If you particularly want to play online, you should probably go for the Xbox version instead. I'm glad I saved £10 and bought the PC version.