Take a look at the third link, second building image. Then the first "in-game" image with the car. The first is achingly detailed, indeed. The second? Look at the building section to the left above the guardrail. See the plain-as-day diamond pattern caused by texture tiling? There's no freaking way those buildings are as detailed as the out-of-game standalones shown in the first part (not that I'm arguing they should be), or such ham-handed tiling wouldn't be visible (though nor would be most of the details due to distance and speed).
To quote from the article:
Yes, it is possible to get all areas of the game that need it up to this level of detail
Which "areas?" The start or finish line of a race, or car selection screen where you're parked? Because obviously this level of detail isn't present in the real-time game world, based on screenshots provided.
Shame on software/hardware companies that use out-of-context and/or pre-rendered images to try to give buyers false impressions. And shame on fanbois who try to pass the same BS on to others. All this does is create impossibly high expectations, which make people feel let down and manipulated, instead of just presenting the damn software as it really is and letting that speak for itself. As gamers, we've got to start extracting a price from companies that use deceptive marketing, and the only effective means of doing so is not buying the product, and letting them know what they did to tick us off. Don't see that happening though.
At any rate, the graphics look great, as do many games on PC, which constantly gets better. There's a place for gaming on both. Trying to rag on either platform is pretty idiotic. As is trying to pretend that ATI's graphics card for Xbox is somehow magically infinitely beyond what they're capable of doing for the PC.