Thats EXACTLY what it is. Its a bastard mutant child of The Sims, GTA and other racing games where you dont actually do much racing. They make you go through so much bullshit before you can actually play the game and then when you do, there isnt much fun stuff.
In the first one when you unlocked Rookie, Amatuer, Pro, Expert and such, all of the available races immediately popped up on the map screen. Now you have to hunt for them. Most of the things that get you points are completely unrelated to racing. For example under Collections (1 of the 4 categories and with 15 levels total) you need to get 5 haircuts, then 10, then 20. You also need to have cosmetic surgery 4 times. Collect 10, 20, 100 pieces of clothes (or more I think) AND, your closet in this game is limited. you need to buy more houses and more furniture in each house just to hold the fucking clothes you cant even see so you can get your Collection Points. I didnt care for gathering clothes in the first game and they made it a hundred times more annoying in this game.
The houses are much prettier and you can now walk around in them, but its still a god damn racing game, and the houses dont matter. Also, you can buy a yacht. It holds 100 pieces of clothing and I think 8 cars. 5 million bucks. Horrible deal for the money when you look at the garage space.
One of the categories is exploring. In the first game you had to cover 500, 1000, 2000 and 5000 miles to get achievement points, and also unlock all the roads by driving on them. Very annoying. They made it even more annoying and complicated in TDU 2.
You are now required to socialize in online stuff whether you want to or not. You will miss out on 1/4th of the points in the game if you ignore it, meaning you cant possibly get to max level and unlock the best cars and race events.
You have to create and share 15 events, join and beat 50 of them, join a club, compete in your club, compete with other clubs, all online. I am hoping someone makes a game hacker to give me those achievements.
Cops are now psychic. If you bash a sign post 100 miles into the middle of nowhere, they magically know it.
The special race events themselves are a little more convoluted and not at all like a proper Test Drive game. People randomly call you on your cell phone and you have 5 minutes to race to their location just so you can start the fucking event. In other words a bad ripoff of GTA.
The regular events (race, timed, speed) seem to be very sparse so far, either that or you have to discover them while randomly driving around. Ditto the auto sales.
Oh, forgot about that. Apparently they added SUV's and off roading to the game. And a whole set of special drivers licenses you have to unlock before you can even use them. I dont care much for off roading in a game like this. If they wanted to make an off road game, they just should have done it, instead of shoe-horning it into a street game. I didnt care much for the bikes in TDU 1, but at least they were used on the same streets as the cars and in many matches you could choose to use a bike or car.
Again, you cannot get all achievement points and move up in level unless you do the offroad challenges and collections.
GOOD NEWS!
The graphics are much improved in this game, which is a double edged sword. Like I said above, you cannot disable the ultra-annoying HDR light like you could in TDU 1. Get used to having constant sun glare during the day. And motion blur whenever you're over 60 mph (which of course in a racing game is all the time). Again another feature that was killable in the first game. The rain was amusing until it killed me, and night driving isnt nearly as cool as I thought it would be. Near as I can tell theres no way to advance time to race during the day in dry weather. BUT, thankfully they included a weather report on your home computer, which is at your house, which you have to visit every time you wanna know what the weather is or how much daylight you have left.
I thought the physics were much better but they arent. Some scripted events look cooler, especially with regard to crashes. But the handling and braking and sliding are actually much worse. You dont control your vehicles like you used to. And you vehicle can now be permanently damaged and dirtied. OH JOY! Now for the fun task of having it washed and fixed all the time. I have no idea if these services cost money or not. Still havent found a place to do it.
Its a shame with improved physics they chose to limit your controls relative to the first game.
Oh, and while you may run around the island using Assisted, Sport, or Hardcore controls, in the driving tests you will always be forced to use Sport.
At the car dealerships you have to walk around in FPS mode (no running) to talk to anyone or look at the cars. You can still test drive anything you want for two minutes, even if its a special car you would normally have to unlock. Again they dont care if you speed or beat up the car.
Overall a huge disappointment. It feels as if they were trying to be like everyone else instead of making a good game better. I'd be happy if they just took TDU 1, removed the bullshit like giving rides to models and hitchers, removed the points required by online play, dumped the requirements for clothing & collecting cars you dont even want, and added a shitload of races and some new cars. They took care of one of those things with the official expansion pack that added about 30 cars (most of which were crapola), but everything seemed to require a sequel.
Now we have the sequel and they added even more crap to the original crap I hated, and killed all the fun parts, like you know, actually driving around and racing.
Wait for the bargain bin, people. This game will be there soon enough. And I pity all the poor bastards who spent 60 bucks for the console version. They will be the most angry.
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EDIT:
OK, it seems you do have a carwash, it costs 1500 bucks. Plastic surgery on your face costs 300 dollars. Still dont know how to repair cosmetic damage by itself. Actually it seems to sometimes happen randomly on its own.