I got the special edition with the 3 extra cars, you get a code that you use online to download them.
I spent about 2 hours playing with Jamie, Ben, Scott and even young Dan turned up......although he picked a Lotus Carlton (barge !!!) !!!!!!
It is every bit as good as I had hoped !! The graphics are great, the sound is brilliant, the cars look ace, there is a plethora of bits to buy for the cars and a lot of it is real manufacturers bits eg Bomex, Mazdaspeed, Border etc etc.
Havent really had much time to sample the single player yet, from chatting to Ben though when you choose Career, make sure you pick a decent difficulty level (I chose the hardest one - am hardcore you see

) and importantly when you get to the screen to choose your home garage you can choose !! Some picked Europe as it is the first one and you get a lot of european cars, I chose Asia so got a nice lot of jap stuff inc an RX7 FC which I bought (white..very Initial D style !!).
Big thumbs up from me !!!!!
Although after being knocked off the track a few times and sadly knocking a few others off trying to do a complete lap without getting hit is quite a challenge...it will change the way you play racing games as if you really hit someone then you can damage your car so it only drives at 7 mph (Ben you know you did this to me !!).
Bring on the online games and banter....