It's not breaking any new ground, but it IS reviving a type of racer that is all but dead in the industry. And it's not like that type of racer died because it was shit or something. These were amongst the best type of racers that ever came out, the pure skill-based no-frill arcade/simcade racers. The question I have is if it's actually good at accomplishing the goals within this barely alive subcategory of racers. For my money, it absolutely does. But, crucially, you don't have to think it does, because it's a legitimate opinion to think it's not that great. It's perfectly appropriate to believe it failed at its goals, which are strictly defined and therefore easy to criticize if there are legitimate issues.
What is not OK is to bring in all sorts of random bullshit, talking about how racers should be, because as a reviewer you're incapable of remembering games that released longer than a month ago, because you have expectations you're inappropriately foisting on a game that has completely different goals, or because you have some daft ideas about open world or upgrades somehow being equivalent of "next gen" or "quality."
Each approach has strengths and weaknesses, and each approach can be done well or poorly. DID DriveClub handle its specific approach to racing poorly? If so, how? When you come from that perspective, criticism can begin to be on the right foot. It does me absolutely no good to read about how much you wish it was open world, because if I wanted a fucking open world racer, I'd play a fucking open world racer. I love Forza Horizon 2, it just came out. Play that shit. This is a different type of racer with different goals. Does it accomplish them well? That is what I want to read.
I am king of negativity. I love hearing people criticize shit, because it means they're wielding a highly effective tool as a consumer. But this shit we've had in like a zillion reviews/previews/articles at this point? It has got to stop. It's embarrassing.