Well, I rented the game this week and I've had a blast with it. Unfortunately I have to cut my rental short and return it as I'm hitting the road tomorrow. But I'll either rent it again (have loads of free rentals) or buy it next weekend. I had been having fun with the single-player but that kind of died out for me - just need to find all the smashes and billboards and whatnot, but it turns out that is more fun to do online as you are waiting for things to happen anyway.
I hadn't tried the online because I was waiting for CAGs but it seems most have moved on from this already. So I decided to hop into a random quick match last night before bed - around 3am Pacific. I got into a game with 3 other people and got some challenges and the vision-cam achievements. Then the guys started to talk and it turns out all 3 were in England (where it was around lunchtime or so

). I had an absolute BLAST playing with these guys and they helped me get some of the tough 4-player challenges done like jumping through the hoop at the airfield and a few others. I'm usually very hesistant to go online with random people but theyse guys were great - as usual, it is all about the people, I guess, with these online games

. I finally had to tear myself away at about 5:30 to get some sleep!
It was getting pretty boring in single-player to find the smashes and stuff, but I found several in doing the challenges online. Plus they showed me an area I didn't even know existed - the airfield. I was able to get the double barrel roll done there in trying to jump through the hoop. I do need to get that flat spin one. For the life of me I can't find that damn quarry though! I like road rage and the burning routes in single-player but really hate the races. I spend far too much time looking at the map to figure out which way to go and end up crashing and always coming in 2nd or 3rd... So I don't know if I'll ever upgrade my licence to the next level.
But I had no idea how tight the the integration of the single and multi-player was (despite hearing about it here a bit and in reviews - you really need to experience it to see the full effect). It is great that you can find things, set the speed records on road segments, and do alot of the stuff you'd normally do in singleplayer while waiting for the multiplayer stuff.
Also, no load times when cruising around and a completely lag-free online experience with 3 people on another continent. Very nice...