While great, personally I had the impression that they were a little too afraid of departing too much from the original, and accidentally made the game much more difficult than necessary. Time trials were brutal (3 perfect laps in a row...) and the first class of cars is also the hardest to control. It gets better going forward.
The track deformation was awesome and it interacted beautifully with the car, but the handling model was even more drift-friendly than the original, almost to a Ridge Racer point, and even the IA couldn't do some turns without crashing on the barriers.
They made an arcade version of Sega Rally Revo on arcade machines with the original desert track and a revamped handling model, but I feel they ruined it even more.
Still, the game is awesome and I've enjoyed it A LOT, but has balancing problems pretty much everywhere. I would buy a sequel/remake in an heartbeat, though.