Tried the demo, and I have to say it's actually quite good. The cars have a weight to them and handling is quite challenging, and the "shift" (as in warp into different persons, not shifting gears) mechanic, while utterly bollocks, is quite well played. Especially in the first mission, where you have to convince your partner that you can do it by taking control of a speeder in an Alpha Romeo 8C competizione.
Especially the dialoguie between the speeder and his passenger are hilarious, as Tanner shifts in and out several times.
The second mission is a pretty straight forward race, except that you have to place 1st AND 2nd with a new Camaro and a Nissan GTR. So you're pretty much drafting yourself in turns, which make this quite challenging.
The last mision ahs you "infiltrate" a getaway driver, where you have to dodge the cops on a timelimit.
The cops are quite hard to lose, and just like in the good olden times, you have one timer for both losing the cops and getting to your destination.
My gripes:
There are no cops in the demo outside of scripted chase starts. Hopefully that's not true for the full version, because both the most fun and frustrating memories of the original driver are having to stick to the speed limit and lights NOT to alert cops while still trying to be on time.
Conclusively, I won't buy it, but it's far better than the last entry of the series.