A friend at work played this yesterday at Sony Santa Monica, and wasn't impressed by the gameplay at all... Said that it was too picky, and that a single mistake would usually result in failure and it just didn't feel good. Also said the game was having a hard time maintaining 30 FPS. The guy showing it to him at Sony agreed, and said it was just a good "screenshot game".
Guy has been a programmer on racing games for some time, so he's likely to be pickier than most, but either way it sounds like them taking more time with it is a good thing.