Yeah some kind of totally dark and not user-friendly, not even hardcore-gamer-friendly way to create and import blocks. That's closer to hacking the game than an actual feature (especially for a game that pretends to be highly user-friendly, so friendly that that you can play it with 5 keys).

With "arrogance" I refer to their assumption people would just buy it after seeing a trailer combined with the idea that those, who played their other releases would buy it anyway. (DOH, because I did.) However, I did not buy Stadium, because I did get to test it and hated it.
In the good old days there was a difference between normal brakes and a handbrake. I have no idea how well this would do, but I'd love to find out what that would be like. Just an idea.

In Valley you get faster around corners, if you bump into the sides rather than tipping the brake for a fraction of a second. There are some things one might get used to, but that just don't feel right. In Canyon this weirdness is not so bad, because it's still fun and dynamic to goof around. There's a greater consistency in behavior on different surfaces, I think. In Valley (and worse in Stadium) you either are glued to the pavement or essentially in a hovercraft on the dirt.

Enough bitching around, I know... anyway. It's just so close to being wonderful, it's painful to me.

But you are certainly right, their prices are very reasonable ($24 for Valley), which is wise. I just wished they'd always do it like they did with Stadium, have a public release of some maps and online for a while before offering the product. If they would've kept it running with the 'demo maps" and had only a full version with online and all maps, they would've gotten me, even though I didn't like Stadium. I'm more than happy to support good spirit.

I actually think it's a good environment. Very nice variety, not too much clutter, high transitional potential and a combination of desirable features from older games - stadium jump drift, island platform variety, desert noslide, bay performance, cop engine and you can actually tap the brake to perform a mini-drift which barely slows you down. Also, a ton of blocks connect to each other and the handling is much more accurate than canyon.

Imo it's much better than canyon and most TMUF environments. Island is special and stadium has no equal but it may well be better than island once people figure out how to build it, making it the second best environment in the series after stadium.

It also has a number of full servers and even a lol server - a sign of an environment that allows creativity.

I suppose we're all bitter and immediately trash everything Nadeo produces after the fail train that was canyon and Shootmania and the stadium money grab, but perhaps we should give this environment a chance, I believe it's better than what you may think by looking at it.

About the environment: I wished so much that we could get an environment in which the car doesn't "go on rails" like stadium and canyon do. Instead of that style, which is also the style of valley, I hoped to see a new envi, in which you should avoid the sliding, like bay for example. However the blocks are nice. Many kind of blocks, lot's of transitions possible, it's good for mappers. Also it's very nolifeable, gogo riolu xD The slowing down that happens on dirt is annoying tho, and also more tight turns would be cool

But the most important: What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

First impression: Very favorable.

I'll never understand how Canyon could've been such a fail. Makes me sad and concerned about my preferences, haha. They gotta push their spirit, though, keep people playing rather than bumping them off for some change. Definitely clean up their act and avoid crashes. I've never had a game that crashed that frequently. (...and I kept playing)

Well i've been playing for an hour and i got no crash at. We will see...
The new handling sucks imo. The car seems too "light". If you turn the opposite direction to stabilize your car, it turns too much and you have the turn the other way, and you have to do 3/4 cycles of left/right to fully stabilize your car on dirt. I guess it's because i'm playing on keyboard. It's maybe more fluent and accurate with a pad...
The editor looks promising though. Some blocks were clearly created with TMX-style transitions in mind, and platform blocks with double floors can fun be too.

I've been enjoying this a lot this evening. Right up until I got to D10 in the campaign (hours ago >.> ). I can't even manage a semi-decent single lap of it, let alone 5! Alas, I think it's time for sleep now and to resume in the morn'.

Tahahah, glad to know I'm not the only one obsessed with finishing up all locals on at least gold. There are some maps that help making sense of the car handling and offer some genuine fun (Cxx or "Blue", brilliant fun even!), but most seem to work against it. Feels to me that narrow streets and tight turns are what bring out the goodness. Once it opens up you feel disabled. I ran a map of Valley with Canyon and instantly went 10% faster, while driving like an idiot (well, like me). Even while I sincerely hate Stadium, you couldn't run a Stadium map faster with the Canyon car. The only upside, the Valley car can fly almost as easily as the Canyon car. The Stadium car just pulls to the ground at 4 times gravity, I think, hahaha. Different planet? Anyway...

Boy, oh, boy, I feel so ungrateful, knowing that Nadeo has a collection of outstanding artists, visually, musically and in code, except maybe the sound guy, who gets a bit carried away with weird engine sounds that don't motivate me that much.
I love the old stadium style car I downloaded for Canyon and which really got me hooked to the game unlike anything else. It's flat on the road, you see the tires and the noise is damn near like a Harley, haha, but less obnoxious. Sorry for my rambling here, I just enjoy finally writing down my thoughts on all this. Nobody else around me I could bore with it, hehe.

So, for what it's worth, I want to apologize for acting so entitled just because I paid a few bucks and have different personal preferences. If I wouldn't see how much I could love this game, I'd never say a word...plus I would certainly not have bought any of them and I got 3 thus far (canyon, storm, valley).
The only unbiased critic and request I'd have would be to fix the crashes (most likely totally ordinary memory access violations(?!)), most common in the editor's media tracker. And to fix the replay/timespeed implementation in the media tracker, after having validated a map. (I get the feeling this has more to do with the automatic internal replay after having finished a whole run?!).
I know, Nadeo's wizards have had to be extremely busy and anxious to get done, but now's the time, I'm sure.
I would really hope for them to consider free (A##) maps on all their tm2 racers for owners of any of their games or mediaplanet for that matter. I'm sure it would make a bigger splash. Looks like they have to get a new generation hooked and they can't do it behind even the lowest price. Just make more exciting advertising with multiplayer scenarios, I'd suggest. It's been some of the biggest online gaming fun I've ever had and it still is!

First and atm already second impression: dayummm! I love it