As a bona fide newcomer to the series, I'm finding the learning curve pretty smooth so far. I'm currently at grid 5, and I've had the game for 5 days. Single races and head to head on hard AI are just about the right amount of challenge. It depends on the track a bit, on some (Arc Prime ) I can't see myself winning without a ridiculous amount of luck with the item pickups.

The time trials and speed laps do feel a bit too forgiving, though. I usually land at least bronze on my first lap, and even gold seems to allow for stupid mistakes. When I do a run I myself consider good, I usually pass the gold limit by over a second.

While the easy golds are a bit dissapointing, I do appreciate that they let me progress with the unlocks. Getting stuck on an early grid because of some arbitrary time limits would definitely piss me off more than a slight lack of challenge. Anyway, since the game allows me to build custom grids with any target times, I'm planning to do that after I get the unlocks done. It seems like a really fun way to work on my lap times.