Quick review (aka my rather opinionated opinion, so if you don't agree I don't care) - PC version
Graphics
Visuals are fine. Game looks quite good on high/ultra, and the rain effects are nice. I also like the way a visible race line forms over time.
Loses a couple of points for Codemasters' typical overuse of the sepia filters - I don't want everything to take on a faint yellow/brown tinge - and no proper DX11 support, even though a DirectX 11 setting is clearly there in the config files. It's the year 2010, so it should use 2010 technology; if the system it's running on is DX11-capable that's what the game should use by default, not 9.0c. On top of that, not only does DX11 make the game look nicer, it improves the performance...
8/10
Audio
The cars sound like Formula One cars, so I guess that's something. A pity that apparently only two or three teams were used for sound recording, which inevitably means that half the cars will sound exactly the same.
Double minus marks for the sound lag, which can only be completely solved by using hardware acceleration - but you can only do that if you have certain sound cards/chipsets. Anyone who doesn't have a Sound Blaster X-Fi based card is SOL: using software acceleration reduces the sound lag, but it also reduces game performance.
5/10
Gameplay
First, the good: on the whole, the racing itself is rather enjoyable. The AI is usually pretty smart, unlike in other racing games (I'm looking at you two, rFactor and Gran Turismo).
Now, the bad: the pitstop bug. Intermediates are useless, as slicks are faster in light rain. The obnoxious penalty system, handing you a drive-through for giving someone's rear wheel the faintest of touches. No safety car. The physics... or lack thereof. The cars handle fine, but overall the cars drive a bit too arcadey for my liking; a bit more unpredictability would've been nice. Using a custom button mapping for your wheel disables the use of your wheel's d-pad in the game menus -- very frustrating, as I have to press a button on the G27 shifter unit to bring up the pause screen, but the arrow keys and Esc on my keyboard to actually navigate and close it. On top of all that, the menu setup is annoying as hell.
So a lot of minus marks, and not many plus points.
4/10 (if the racing wasn't somewhat fun, this would've been an easy 2/10)
Longevity
I bought this game hoping it would keep me occupied until GT5 comes out, but after about three hours of playtime I'm already a bit bored with it. The option of 5- and 7-year careers helps the game's longevity, but once you've done at least one of each and won the WDC more times than Michael Schumacher, what else is there to do? Multiplayer offers increased replay value, but unless you're racing with mates you'll likely bore of that eventually too. Complete absence of any other year of cars hurts in a big way - I remember F1 05 (on the PS2) had unlockable rares such as the FW11 Williams, John Player Lotus; in F1 2010, there's no real incentive to keep playing once you've got all the achievements as there are no unlockable cars or tracks.
6/10 (5- and 7-year careers help the score, as does multiplayer; but the game doesn't have an infinite lifespan)
Overall
6/10 - it had/has potential (and is likely to be enjoyable if you're after an out-and-out arcade racer), but glaring omissions - no safety car, no manual pit-lane control, no actual AI in qualifying - and rather significant bugs - the pitstop bug, the screwed up race timings, sound lag - severely detract from the experience. Plus it uses Games for Windows Live on PC, which is evil. Add half a point for the console versions, which obviously don't suffer from the sound lag and menu d-pad issues.
Worth a: rent. In its present state (ie with more bugs and issues than swiss cheese has holes), I can't really recommend buying F1 2010 unless you're an absolute F1 junkie.
In future, any (new) F1 I play will be in rFactor 2.
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. At least we now know why I could put fast lap after fast lap in without the tyres going off 
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...... and i'm finding the game hard, frustrating, enjoyable and annoying at the same time. Some of the moves from AI at times early in races just defies belief, as does the pit issue. It's ruined plenty of promising results so far.
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. I'll post an update on how i'm doing after a few races.
