I realise this thread is a couple of weeks old but i've not been online much in the last few months and just spotted this and had to write something..
My biggest disappointment with TDU2, above and beyond all else, were the physics. Being very much into the Racing side of TDU1 the handling physics were at the heart of TDU for me, the handling had a depth to it that TDU2 just doesn't . I see alot of people complaing that the cars all handle the same in TDU2, not sure I fully agree, though I do admit the difference between cars was greater in TDU1. I think the biggest problem with TDU2 is that the cars lack feel, which is an area where TDU1 was so utterly brilliant. The feeling of being connected to the road, feeling the car react to the surface of the road and feeling the car slide and judging how much to let it slide and then just holding it there, all these are removed from TDU2. In fact the sense of feeling in the original was so good that we forgave the game many of it's faults (except of course for game crashes!) and that's what keeps it interesting. With TDU2 I felt like I was above the road, not on it, and the handling had no finesse and didn't allow you to try different techniques, therefore there's less to learn and ultimately that dramatically shortens it's shelf life. I think the feel of the cars, or lack of should I say, is the single biggest reason why I found TDU2 boring after a while, there's just not the same sense of achievement when you get it right.
This is made even worse by the actual roads themselves. Did someone drive round the whole of Oahu and Ibiza in some kind of super-bulldozer and flatten out every single little bump, nuance and rise? The smoothness of the roads just adds to the lack of feel and therefore interest. Just how bad it was was brought home to me when I tried the new Palm Grove (or Sandle to the Metal). In TDU1 Palm Grove was an awesome challenge that could (and did) keep me interested for months. Taking an S7, CCR etc around that track was a real seat of your pants, knife edge ride, the car would bounce from one bump to another, and if you hit one wrong then it was over in an instant. It was fun learning how to use the uneveness to your advantage and what areas of the track to avoid, it took months to master tracks like Palm Grove. Fast forward to TDU2 and the very first time I took an A1 car on the track I was able to take the chicane flat out.....eh? Where's the challenge? There was no skill to the track anymore, no need to think where to place the car to avoid this, or take advantage of that, just a billiard table smooth road that asked only that you got the correct racing line and nothing more. Essentially they'd removed anything interesting.
But what really gets my back up is that the whole game felt so rushed and incomplete, even though there were nearly five years between realeases. No trade feature???? I got the feeling from the start that TDU2 was meant to have a trade feature but they didn't have the time to put it in, or there were problems with it so they decided not to put it in. Either way it would explain why you can't easily sell your cars on TDU2. It would also explain why it's so hard to make money in TDU2. Making money in TDU1 was a problem if the trade feature was down, although not as difficult as TDU2. Did they really mean to make it that difficult? Or did they just decide at the last minute to ditch trade? Shame, because the trade feature was an interesting little part of TDU, it was like its own little economy and after a while cars would command certain prices, i.e. S7's were always available cheap, so no point in buying those to make money, ahhh but there's an enzo going for cheap, i'll get that because I know someone will buy it at full price. All the cars were like that and it was like a game within a game.
Also, the reliability of the servers was another example of how rushed this was. I haven't been on TDU2 for quite a while but i'm gonna take a wild guess and say there's still big problems. If there's ONE thing that should've been learnt from TDU1 it was make sure the servers work. For a game that prides itself on community this is fundamental, I think it's safe to say that they didn't work. And for anyone thinking "oh well, its a new game they'll get it sorted".......Really? They said that about TDU1, they never did fix them, there were improvements but there were always problems, in fact I think it was the single biggest complaint levelled at TDU1. Game crashes were probably #2 on the list, and TDU2 didn't improve on that either. All this, plus little things I noticed liked spelling mistakes on signs etc made me feel that TDU2 was incredibly rushed and that, to a certain extent,i'd been ripped off
Those are just the main reasons I was dissapointed with TDU2, i'm sure i could write pages more if I put my mind to it. But not everything about TDU2 was bad. I liked the casino idea, instead of chilling with friends parked on a beauty spot, you could go in the casino and hang around, play some cards and have a laugh (oh wait, no you couldn't cos the servers didn't work....but it had potential). The customisation of the charachters and houses was good, and added some interest. Also, the paint shop had potential, the graphics etc were an interesting addition, it's just that they didn't work very well. And of course Ibiza was something that added alot of interest.
But overall, TDU2 is a game that has lots of potential but ultimately failed.
I would just like to say if anyone from Atari ever reads this and you're thinking of making a TDU3 then please take notice of everyone here and make the driving interesting again. If you can do that, and that the servers work, then we'll forgive the game any of it's other faults. After all we did it with the first one.