After giving Blur a good test out last night, I can say it’s not really the game for me. The game looks very pretty certainly, and has a bit of a Mario Cart feel to it with the powerups and stuff – but I feel it loses a fair bit of charm in the implementation.
I’m not a hardcore racer, but I do like the odd game here and there. If they’d stuck the burnout engine in this, with the powerups I’d be all over it like a rash – but to me, something just doesn’t quite gel with this game.

Not so much a crashing simulator, but the driving in burnout feels a lot smoother. It could be just something my brain isn’t getting about drifting in Blur, or maybe aiming the powerups, but even the way the cars take damage in Burnout is more appealing to me – more believable crashes.

In my mind, no. At least initially its very hard to pull off effectively, which is very offputting as I’m used to games trying to draw you in rather than push you away.
If you pull off a drift you get bonus “fans” (experience), but it’s not intuitive as you’re driving that hammering the brake on and off will produce the best drift.
It may be I still haven’t gotten the knack, but it’d be nice to have some kind of tutorial system to take you through the physics of the cars in this game before lumping you right in on the track.

Ahahaha. Or an adverse camber.

Heh, I expect it is. Still – it is very very shiny and impressive overall. If I didn’t have other racing options it’d certainly fill that gap in my games collection