I think the car controls are actually great.
It's like they combined the physics from IV with San Andreas and made it something in between.
The grip varies hugely between all the different cars unlike in IV and San Andreas it was sort of really similar in all the cars.
Lots of modifications available for cars. Lower suspensions, engine upgrades, turbos, rims (pretty nice looking too), xenon lights, bulletproof tyres, enhanced car armour, window tint, hoods, bumpers, sideskirts. Pretty awesome to mod the high end Audi A6 lookalike.