Some interesting discussion over the last few pages, I'm pretty new to Horizon, so the history behind some of it is probably lost on me. But I'll weigh in with my take on the game.
I first played Forza games when I got game pass a bit over a year ago in an attempt to keep myself going until GT7 arrives. I enjoyed FM7 but FH4 did nothing for me. I figured that I must prefer more race oriented titles and open world wasn't for me. I probably put 10 to 15 hours into FH4 over a few weeks to give it a chance, but found myself wanting to quit it to complete FM7 or do the dailies on GTS.
Fast forward to now and with GT7 still months away and GTS and FM7 completed I thought I'd give FH5 a shot. Part of my dislike of FH5 was the snow and general miserable weather. Whenever I played it I seemed to time it to winter, lol. I knew the seasons changed, but knowing I'd be having to put up with snow every few weeks was enough to make me not be that interested.
When I saw the release date announced for FH5 announced and the subsequent trailer I decided I'd give it a try. At least the weather would be nice. So I bit the bullet and preordered.
The biggest thing I can say about the game is it is just great fun. It has it's faults, but for me it doesn't really affect the fun factor. I hope they fix the issues, and I'm sure they will, but in the meantime there is a tonne of fun stuff to keep me amused. Maybe I'm not as fussy as some, but to me on a dollar for hour basis this game is going to be fantastic value. I'm playing on series X and I'm not getting a lot of the issues that PC players seem to be encountering. The only real bugs seem to be related to online in arcade and eliminator.
I find the UI to be pretty ordinary in comparison to GT games, the story is cheesy as all get out, the music isn't really to my taste, the car list is missing most of my favourites from FM7 (Aussie stuff & early Mazdas), the car modelling isn't as polished as GT Sport, but it's still fun to play. The tuning options are very good, the game overall looks great, there is no shortage of things to do, the difficulty level (apart from seasonals) is very scalable to suit most people. In the coming months as the car list expands and the glitches get sorted this will be an absolute belter of a game. In the meantime I'll be banging away trying to fill my car collection, trying to complete the seasonals and experimenting with oddball creations to launch off danger signs and having a ****ing ball.