The Crew 2

Eh, for a $1 USD you can't complain. The game isn't bad, with the little time I played today I drove all the way from California to New York and it was a fun drive. At least Ubisoft has stated that they are going to give this game an offline mode which is fantastic considering they up and left The Crew 1 and shutdown all servers. You can't play it anymore, and they need some good reputation at the moment.
Ubisoft/Ivory Tower haven't stated anything that the game is going offline, but it seems like it might sometime soon with future-proofing the game and giving it a 98% discount on all platforms.

I have a feeling that this game was designed by people who had never actually driven or sat in a car, and everything they knew about driving was through bing searches and 80's action movies.
Still worth the price tho, beautiful graphics and racists

Alright. The Crew 2. Judging from the current all-time high concurrent peak player counts for the game, I'd say a lot of people are aware of this game currently being priced at one dollar (and less in some regions). And a lot of people have bought the game as a result of this stunning deal. Including myself. Just to get it out of the way, if you have something to say about The Crew 1's removal, go to the game forum. I'm not interested in the topic as part of this review. So...
I am confident I would never have bought this game had it not been a buck, and I'm also confident that a lot of people have the same opinion. But since it was a buck, I did in fact buy it, and I'm glad I did. It's hella fun. The gameplay loop of joining events and races, using the cash you earn to buy new vehicles and such, and upgrading your vehicles with loot rewards from events and races, is pretty simple. But it is also effective. As you progress, you will unlock more events and races, and because they are located across the lower 48 States, you get a wide variety of settings for everything. From cities to mountains to forests to lakes to deserts to meteor craters to rain to snow to beaches and on and on, there is a vast array of different types of courses and tracks to enjoy. And there are a wide variety of types of races and events as well. From standard track races to boat races to plane aerobatics to demolition derbies, and so on.
The sheer volume of content is quite impressive. And, the various vehicles, be they cars or trucks or bikes or planes or boats or dune buggies or whatever...they all handle nicely and feel good to drive in. Each of these is upgradeable in many ways, which will increase their performance, handling, speed, and just generally make them function better and better as you progress.
There is a campaign of sorts, where you try to become the lead racer in a few different styles, but it's also easy enough to ignore that in favor of simply racing around, upgrading your vehicles, wandering around your crib, and simply free roaming. And free roaming is a lot of fun in and of itself. Mostly, it's a huge sightseeing trip, where you can also try to beat other player's records with jumps, speed, and so on; that you come across while driving around. And setting some records of your own for other people to beat. And there is a decent photography mini game all across the States where you will take pictures of animals, special vehicles and such to gain more cash and follower.
And gaining followers is really the sub goal that most impacts your playthrough. The number of followers you have determines how popular your racer is, which in turn unlocks new vehicle options and race/event options. Just about everything you do will earn you new followers (and cash).
Also, you can play with other players and even if you're not, you will see them all over the map. At this moment in time (the time of this review being written), no matter where you are, somebody else is nearby. And there are a lot of player created activities as well. Plus, you can co-op with friends if you get bored of solo play. So really, the content just keeps expanding as you explore what the game has to offer.
Visually, the game looks great. It has a 60 FPS cap, which isn't anything to brag about, but somehow, the devs have made the most out of that limitation and made a game that has a never-ending supply of screenshot moments. The audio is also well done. The songs themselves are very cool. The dialogue is basically all "hey bro" Extreme Games fodder, but it's fun and definitely appropriate.
You will need Ubisoft Connect to play this. I don't care at all about that, but you might. And some people are having an issue with the game crashing if they have other non-Steam clients linked to their Ubi account. I have not had that issue personally and have it linked to both PSN and Epic as well, but if you do, you will need to unlink everything except Steam and that will resolve the crashing issue apparently. No idea how or why that is what it is or why it only affects some players. It's been a bug free experience for me though with a 3070 and an i5.
Now, should you also buy the season pass? I personally have no intention of doing so. There's no new content, and I don't care about getting a few extra cars and some swag. But the base game, offering what can easily be hundreds and even thousands of hours of content for one dollar. That is something I can definitely get behind. I can't think of a better deal in gaming at this moment. Now, if you miss or skip this one-dollar promotion they have going on right now, value will be more of...you know..., a your mileage may vary type thing....
If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, Robilar's Reviews, it would be appreciated. Cheers.

Forza Horizon fan. Having fun in Crew 2 with all the different vehicle and event types. C2 runs smooth, no bugs, and each event type is well designed and implemented. Only frustration, I did not reach Platinum division in the Summit my first week.
Being rich in Forza means you can buy and tune a competitive vehicle. In Crew 2, you buy the base vehicle, but you have to grind for upgrade parts.
FH has classes (B, A, S1, S2). C2 does not. All vehicles of same type in C2 have same max tune value.
FH no Nitro, C2, Nitro is primary factor.
C2, no Auction House nor any way to sell vehicles.
C2, leaderboards are more integral, and are a focus of endgame/seasons (Summit).
I have over 700 vehicles in FH5. In C2 earning vehicles is a MUCH slower process, and so far, I don't see much incentive to collect cars, beyond appearance and Summit requirements. Do different Street Race cars handle differently at max stats?? excluding part affixes and awd.

great game, but ubisoft will shut this game down in a few years like what they did with tc1.
EDIT: they made an offline mode for the crew 2 and motorfest as of 9/10/2024.

Fun game, bad driving mechanics, good graphics and very fun.

Bought for a dollar figured hey, why not. Started driving, then turned the radio on to come to one of the most wretched abysmal discoveries of my life.
Someone without dogshat taste in music is possibly still trapped at Ubisoft. We need to do all we can to rescue this person from their descent to french hell.
Which is a lot like normal hell but much more bougie & smelly.