For me, the cars really respond well to tuning, and the handling model is pretty compelling to play. Granted it isn’t perfect. I would like more tire feel, perhaps some more reverberation in the FFB to highlight tire flex. And maybe dial up the details just a bit… But I can probably turn up the road details to get what I am looking for? But I don’t want to mess with my FFB settings right now. I like my current settings.
This is the first Forza where I can feel the car at the limit. The other games up until now either gave me grip or understeer to work with, but the ragged edge was a guessing game on wheel. Trying to give the cars more toe out just made the grip fall off a little further than toe in, but with either the cars just plowed. This game, Toe in or out can be immediately felt. The same with dampers and how they react to bumps. I finally get it with FM23. And that makes my cars feel more lively than the past titles.
Early on I built a Trans-Am, and before I added any suspension bits, the car felt just as numb and ponderous as the real one I got to drive. It was surreal how the car felt just as bad as the car I remember. Once I put wider tires on it, it got a lot better. Then I added anti-roll bars and the car’s character completely changed. Once I started balancing the turn in with the ARBs, it clicked and I began to run lap after lap at Mugello, just getting the ARBs set correctly. After “level-build-dominating” the Trans-Am for a bit, I was able to add the suspension and eventually put better tires under it. The car felt like it was on rails. A far cry from the wallowing boat it started as.
That is what draws me to play the game. Building the cars and getting them to perform the way I want them to. I am no master builder in FM23. I am finally trying my hand at making cars that are more skewed towards speed, but with a decent amount of grip for some decent lap times. Watching my cars get trounced by the front runners in C class is, what got me rethinking my building and tuning targets.
The rest of the game… If it weren’t for free play, I would have run out of things to do a while ago. I am trying to get into multi-player, but that is as aggravating as it is challenging. Since FM5, I started to avoid multi-player. I began not liking to play in public hoppers starting with the XB1. That dislike grew with each title, culminating with FM7, which eventually lead to avoiding multi-player. I’d do a race to see if I still had that knot in my gut when playing against others. And once I felt it, I’d quit after that race.
FM23, the irksome feeling is still there, but I can tolerate it a lot better, mostly thanks to having some sort of connection to the cars I am running.
Sorry for the chapter length reply. This is one for ‘read aloud’ if my rambling is unbearable. 
I couldn’t remember what the “5-days-before-official-release” time period was called. That’s the best I could do impromptu. 