While not perfect by any stretch, there's a lot of racing fun to be had here, and enough variety to keep it interesting.
The game starts you out basically tossing you into the deep end by having you do a lap on a track in a BMW and from there it decides what your difficulty settings should be. Luckily it allows you to "try again" as much as you want, and I recommend you do. Firstly the game engine is new and different, and it will take you a few laps to get used to it. Also the default control settings are a bit wacky, especially if you're using a wheel/pedal combo, which is wise to note I am using a Driving Force Pro for this game. Give it a few laps, find what you like, you can adjust the settings and try again to see how you like the feel. For my purposes I went on the full simulation mode. Also I heavily adjusted the factory control sensitivity, if you have a wheel you will need to go in and manually set it to 900 degrees, and you will want to play with the other sensitivities. I believe after my tweaking I was able to get it close to the control feel of GT5. You also REALLY need to change the viewpoint but I'll get to that later.
So once you have done this you step into the game, you have enough money to buy a tier 1 car and can get into some races. Some patience will still be required, as while the early races aren't too hard, unfortunately the AI is out to kill you, so be careful. You will always start mid pack, and there is no qualifying to improve your starting position. The standard races can be clean, but as you progress you will be allowed to some invitational events, which for example have one-make races. These one-make races can be real crash fests as the computer AI drives them all at the same pace. For example the Aston Martin DB9 race was a controller tossing exercise in frustration.
This leads me to the star system. A feature that seems to have carried over from the Burnout series you gain stars for certain milestones in each race (3 stars for a win, 2 for second, etc), as well as certain goals (earn 400 points, complete a perfect lap, spin out 3 opponents, etc). Notice my last example there, a game that purports itself as a racing simulator rewards you for smashing your opponents off track. You need to collect these stars to open the higher tiers of cars and races, so in many cases your races become crash fests caused by you as you're out there hitting everything but the lottery in search of the most points. You can also get points for precision driving as well (clean passes, holding the race line, etc), but its easier and faster to blast your opponents into the weeds, and you won't feel bad because if you don't do it to them they will be happy to do it to you.
That is my main gripe with this game. Maybe I'm too much of a sim fan, but if you're going to be a serious racing game, then respect the reality of racing that you really do not want to hit everyone out there. The sad part is this system completely erases the point of some events, for example the head to head races are pretty easy to complete once you realize all you need to do is punt your opponent into the nearest wall and take off down the road. Then there's the time trial events that inexplicably have point score goals, I find myself doing one or two hot tearing laps at the start setting a time 3 or so seconds faster than the field, then driving around bashing everyone off the track to make the point goal. These points also help you move up earning sponsorships and money and unlocking things.
That brings me to my next point, money. Its really easy to make money in this game, giving you the ability to buy and/or build the fastest possible car for the tier pretty easily. You can also use real life money through the PSN to buy a car, but its so easy to earn in the game if you really need to do that you need to go return the game to the store because you have no business playing a racing game. The car models as well are really nice and are pretty exact models. The overall graphics are great as well, not GT5, but still great with no noticeable draw in or anything like that. However you will notice some slowdown issues when theres a lot of cars on track, usually the first thing to go is the sound which gets choppy.
The cars bring me to my next point. The first thing you need to do when playing this game is to get rid of the in car view and go with the GT style front bumper cam. The in car view is great, it looks good, and is modeled very well, but you can't see anything. Also the developers in an attempt at realism make the damage extend to the cockpit. So every time you get hit the view blurs, the windshield cracks, etc. It gets to the point that the game is unplayable. I understand the attempt at realism but its not fun. The best thing I did for this game was to switch to the front bumper cam, you still get some of the blur effects but overall at least you can see whats going on. For those who say its not real, your field of vision in real life is MUCH wider than if you were to use this cockpit view, a 3D cockpit doesn't translate well to a 2D screen that is far smaller than your real life field of view.
Finally the tracks, there are many fairly accurately modeled real world tracks included, including a modified section of the Nurburgring which is fun. However the courses made up for the game can be hit or miss, and I even found myself specifically skipping races due to the course as some are just plain too tight for the size/class of car you are driving, as well they seem to have tight turns thrown in just to make it so that you crash into people a lot. These courses can be frustrating, but as I said, easily avoided.
I feel like I have only been telling you the bad things but there are good things. For one there are plenty of good cars, and varied types to suit everyones tastes. You should not have a hard time finding a car you enjoy driving for each tier. And all the cars can be customized to your liking by color, decals, etc. Also there are a LOT of different races. If you have problems finishing a particular race, no worries, you can go to another race and never deal with it again. I'm not a fan of drifting and managed to avoid drifting completely in the game with no detriment to my ability to move up. You will find yourself being promoted through the tiers quickly, but since theres so much to do, and you're here to have fun and not just beat the game as fast as possible, it pays to stay in your current tier, runs some more races, and build up some extra cash to get a nicer car with some extra cash so you can modify it. Many of the races can be genuinely exciting and if you make an effort to race clean, as the races get later the AI gets a bit cleaner.
I have not yet tried Shift online as all I have been hearing is that the races come down to crash fests, which sounds way too frustrating to me.
Overall I really do enjoy playing Shift and I'm glad I gave it a chance. You have to look at it for what it is, an arcade racer trying to be a sim. Theres also a lot to do and no walls to hold you back. You can easily jump around and do any number of different things if you don't like the race you're in now. That cuts down on the frustration level tremendously, as it keeps you from being stuck on one race to get ahead, and just giving up. If you're looking for GT here you will probably be disappointed, but with a little work and some patience, even a GT fan can enjoy this game. Also if you're looking for NFS you are lost here as well, as this game is 100% different than any other NFS game.