Now that I am close to the PS5 Platinum trophy I think I have messed around with the game enough to give some impressions. Since I consider this game unfinished and at best in beta state, my impressions right now are "mixed" (5/10), while my long-term outlook is "positive" (8.0/10) if we get performance/bug fixes and some QoL improvements.
Pros:
-The best handling model and FFB ever from Codemasters
-Lots of stages
-Racenet
Cons:
-Game is at best in beta state
-Sparse, uninspiring environments with poor graphics and worse performance
-Baffling amount of bugs, omissions, and odd design decisions
Current verdict: Could be an excellent game six months from now.
There will be some inevitable comparisons to Kylotonn's (KT) WRC games and DiRT Rally and DiRT Rally 2.0.
First, the positives:
Sound is excellent. No need to even comment. It's what Codemasters does best game after game and such a welcome improvement over the horrendous KT sounds.
HANDLING
The force feedback is a huge step up compared to any previous CM game. The handling is also decent. No need to beat a dead horse with the sim/not-sim argument. I was not expecting a true sim and I'm not disappointed with how the game drives on my Fanatec DD Pro.
All I will say is that it is pretty intuitive and easier to get to grips with than the DiRT Rallies. I never liked driving in the DRs because I felt like I had to re-learn basic car behavior. I was always able to easily jump between WRC 8/9/10/G and RBR with minimal adjustment as well as between GT Sport/GT7 and Assetto Corsa Competizione. But any time I jumped in a DiRT Rally it just felt wierd. I always had to "train" myself to accept the odd CM physics. Luckily that is no more with EA WRC. It really feels much better, except on tarmac (again).
Braking distances (a bit longer than the DiRT Rallies) are an improvement as well. Unfortunately, locking up is nearly impossible and to make things worse, on my Clubsport V3 pedals, the brake pedal vibrates when in the last 20% of travel and it has nothing to do with locking up. Even with the car stopped it vibrates. And I have turned off pedal vibration in the config but it doesn't seem to work! In WRCG the brake would only vibrate when I lock the tires, the way it should be. This must be a bug.
I really don't feel an improvement in the tarmac handling. It is different, but more of a side step to me rather than a step forward. I do like that it has much more grip and the FFB makes it easier to understand than before. However, there is this bizarre snapping that occurs when traction is gained and lost during acceleration which does not seem intuitive at all. It's just plain weird. Other than that, overall I do enjoy tarmac whereas in the DiRT Rallies I despised driving on hard surfaces.
Another annoyance is the CM classic "lift the throttle for instant powerslide" when in reality a quick jab of left-foot braking should be used to get some quick rotation going. Thankfully this is much less prevalent than in the DRs.
I believe the many complaints about being "too grippy" are off the mark. All three WRC classes handle as I would have expected them to. It's actually not far off of WRCG which I really enjoyed.
The historical cars are a mixed bag. Some of them feel odd, others feel similar to DR2.0, while others feel pretty good. It seems most of the attention was put into the Rally1, WRC2 and WRCJ cars which is fine with me because I will be using those almost exclusively in Clubs mode.
OTHER POSITIVES
The stages themselves are truly excellent. By far the best part of the game. My only gripe is how uniform the road surfaces are. It's generally a fixed width with very little variation and practically no camber. Some more surface detail would really add a lot to the experience.
Racenet coming back with telemetry is a big plus, and the entire Clubs system is excellent (barring some bugs and odd design desicions which I mention below).
I haven't used Photo Mode or watched a replay yet.
The livery editor is welcome but quite quirky and limited at this point. Sorry, I am spoiled by GT7 and WRCG.
Hardcore damage to my surprise is no longer just a puncture simulator. Sure, you still get punctures for ridiculous things like hitting a tree head-on at 30kph, but the car damage seems to add up much more quickly than in the DRs.
Terminal damage from a hit is much easier to get (I know this from getting the Portugal engine damage trophy). There are also many more areas to get the screen of death for falling off a cliff which is great.
The damage seems punishing enough to want to avoid hitting things and going off track while at the same time not as brutally realistic as RBR so I think it's a pretty balanced tradeoff.
If I could have my wish I would rename current Hardcore damage as Medium damage, and add a Hardcore mode with brutal RBR-style damage. It's the only way to keep the aliens from hotlapping in Clubs.
Visual damage is improved although I could care less about a BeamNG damage model. What's important is what happens mechanically, not how realistically your fender can deform.
NEGATIVES
Now for all the things holding this game back:
The stuttering on PS5 is not too bad, but the screen tearing and slowdown are horrendous. Some locations are better than others. The performance of EA WRC on PS5 is unacceptable.
The UI is horrendous, difficult to navigate, and not intuitive at all. The character models are laughable and the entire presentation is remeniscent of a cheap mobile game.
The game frankly has some baffling oversights and design decisions. Little things like needing a 30km stage to get the car dirty as a simple example. I have many more examples below.
The graphics are quite bad on PS5. However, as a 50 year old gamer who also loves Richard Burns Rally the graphics don't bother me too much but this game is anything but next-gen on PS5. In general the car models look great but the stages are hit and miss. Some locations look pretty good but most look quite bad. Overall the game is a bit blurry and most of the stage textures are woeful.
Evidently the game has HDR but I can't see any evidence of HDR actually being utilized. GT7, Gravel, DiRT 5 and many other titles have a clear use of HDR. I am just not seeing it here. At all.
Most of the stages have a bunch of bland, sparse and repeating trackside objects (tress/bushes/plants mostly) that really lower the immersion factor, plus they look quite bad. Road texture at night looks horrible. It's such a shame the seasons don't change anything other than the ambience. Winter can be especially annoying because of the jagged snow patches on the road which don't affect handling but can really make it hard to see where the road is going.
I do love the extended dust trails that get rendered.
Career mode has the same events every year, down to the same stages and weather conditions. Career mode in general seems hastily pasted together and with way too many side events. The career UI is the worst in the entire game. And why is there no track degradation in career mode? KT career mode was so much better and engaging than this, and had the option to run "realistic" length rallies of 12 to 16 stages with the added challenge of their excellent tire management system. I got the trophy for winning the WRC championship and I will never touch this mode again. It's a huge step backwards compared to what I got used to in the KT games.
The tire management system is horrible, ripped from DR2.0. I haven't tested but I assume that the tire wear is scripted as in DR2.0. There is basically zero tire strategy. I did test in DR2.0 and finishing a long 12 stage rally at 60km/hr leaves your tires in the same state as when you are pushing hard (yes this took a long time to test LOL). The KT tire management system is light years beyond EA WRC. And why are there compounds other than soft & hard for the official WRC cars?
Ridiculous tire options in long club events.
Like 1x soft, 1x medium, and 11x(!) rain for 12 tarmac stages.
Or 1x medium and 1x hard for 16(!) gravel stages
No DNFs in Clubs, you just disappear from the leaderboard instead of getting a 60' penalty per missed stage. This will make calculating the finishing order of the DNFers an absolute nightmare.
No overall results in Clubs after each stage.
There is massive cutting and cheating going on in Time Trials.
Club events can no longer be created from desktop. You have to be in the game.
Stage degradation level in Clubs can no longer be assigned by stage. It has to be set for AN ENTIRE CHAMPIONSHIP! It's absolutely mind boggling that this was changed from DR2.0.
Bizarre lack of leaderboard filters.
Builder cars. This must have been something CM had cooking for a while now because it really has no place in a WRC game. I'm not complaining that it's there. I think it's pretty cool for those of you who decide to use it. To me it just seems superfluous.
However there is one odd reason why the addition of builder cars has me fuming. Back in the CM forum days (quite a few years ago now), I remember everyone complaining about the top modern class in D4 and DR2.0 being the R5 cars and missing the modern WRC stuff because KT had the license. I made an innocent suggestion that the Gr.B interpretation of rally cars in GT Sport could be an interesting solution for having modern, powerful rally cars in a non-licensed game. I got completely roasted for it with everyone scolding me with crap like "fake rally cars have no place in a rally sim". Now that CM has debuted the builder cars, in a licensed WRC game no less, those same people are like "oh that's so cool, what a great way to give some variation to career mode". Uh-huh. Many of these are the same people I saw for years bashing everything about the KT games on Reddit, YT, FB, Twitter... Now that EA WRC has released in a horrendous state, these same people praise it. This is why you CANNOT take anyone seriously on any forum or any YouTube video. Some people have some kind of emotional attachment to Codemasters that impairs their ability to perceive reality. Although I strive to be impartial, you, dear reader, should even be doubting my opinions in this post!
Now just some of the many bugs I have experienced (there are tons more but these are just off the top of my head):
-Broken AI (there are many issues but I won't go into them here since they are pretty well known by now)
-Cannot equip used tires even if they're in decent shape. Once you change sets you cannot re-use the old set.
-Saved setups get corrupted.
-Hybrid map defaults to Cautious after each stage so if there is no service area you cannot select Balanced or Aggressive.
-Exiting a Club event gives you a brand new car with zero damage when you return
-Engine sound cannot go below 50 so it's hard to hear the co-driver
-The game randomly sets my DualSense controller as the primary device for no reason whatsoever.
CONCLUSION
There is an excellent game here but it needs months more development. I'm glad I got a disc for $30 and didn't pay full price. How EA decides to handle the state of this game in the coming months will be paramount in the way I view any future titles or DLC.
Let's hope this game gets patched up and elevated to the level it deserves because in spite of all its flaws it's pretty damn enjoyable.
Also, when I was promoted to a WRC 2 offer from Max, the "side missions" involved Rally 2, so I used just ONE car (the Polo R5) for that entire season 
Also, thanks for the dailies you do, so much fun 
