the force feedback is completely useless at the moment
The FFB in Grid Autosport is way better than this
I would have to completely disagree and suggest that either your profiler or in game ffb settings are just not optimised.
Set up correctly the ffb is infact a real leap from previous titles and provides feel throughout a stage and replicates the movement of each car well over say crests and surface changes. You can feel it all and react properly. I've a thread up here on RD where I have given an idea of good in game settings, if those don't work let me know what your profiler settings are and we'll no doubt be able to optimize the ffb for different people.
It does seem that only your generic thrustmasters, logitechs etc... are supported for the time being with more "bespoke" wheels being tricky to get working well.
I think the game could do with a 5% grip reduction and tyre choices that make the changing surfaces a little more treacherous that they are at the moment. On top of that the ffb when sliding needs to become lighter and not heavier so as to let the car move out from underneath you more before it is collected up.
As a package I am interested to see how this pans out. With more rallies and a good online league system this could very easily top RBR as a whole package as, having driven both back to back yesterday, Dirt Rally is already coming surprisingly close to being top dog.
So, is it a sim? Depends on what you compare it to. It is very much a sim compared to Gran Turismo or Dirt 3. It's on the same kind of level as PCARS only with ffb settings being much harder to get right so some improvement could make them easy equals. Compared to say rF2, it still feels sim-cade.
Not that it matters. It's rival is RBR and it is mighty close to overcoming it. The sounds and visuals are astonishing as are the incredibly detailed and well put together pace notes. The cars DO feel very believable already even if there is an obvious room for improvement.
I would feel comfortable saying that with more content, functionality with leagues and online plus maybe a few tweaks in the right direction ffb-wise this would be the best rallying game of the past decade.