Trust me... the dev heard that when the demo came out. Kind of points out why the game didn't sell too well, despite some of its better features.
I think it's maybe a bit too much of a big step between games. If it had gradually become a sandbox, or the races were fixed, but with the open city between events, then it may have been more fun.
The ability to restart races, select events from the map, and a true return to the "Crash" event of the first games would have almost completely fixed this game in my book. None of these things would be hard to implement with the existing game engine, for God's sake the first two things would probably take just a few days to implement! The only reason they didn't is because they were so hell-bent on pushing the sandbox angle they didn't care if it made the game less fun to play.
I got my first few licences and was bored to tears. Being forced to drive from one side of the city just to get to the races I needed, over and over again was
not fun. The west side of the map, in the hills is an event-less nightmare.
Forcing me to play it open-ended is what made this game a 5/10 instead of an 8/10 for me.