The game is not releasing this year, I'm even not certain it will release next year. The game is not a beta either. Well... I'm not going to debunk all the shit written in these articles, it would simply take too much. But i warn you all, don't believe in people that don't even understand the very basics of game development.
How's the game? It's very, very, very early. It's building on the foundations of Project CARS 1. They have been mostly doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff: cleaning code, rewritting stuff, working on new tech. Some of these things are making its way into the builds, some are not. hey have even taken out many of the things that work in PC1 because they will build them from scratcch. Others are still there because they will be improved.
For reference, the basics of STM will be there for PC2, but they will expand them and have a lot more understanding of how to corectly tweak the system. I can say that, at this stage, with no extra tech involved, some cars feel already better than any PC1 car. STM was introduced like two years ago. They only had one year to learn how to correctly use it before release. Now they have doubled that time, so it's no wonder it feels better. But there're some mechanical and other simulations that they are rebuilding.
We have had access to some documentation on how things are planned to work regarding Career, MP, Championships and all that shit. But, like I said, it's still way too early to have these in a working condition. I will say though that these documents look promising. Will they come to reality? Who knows.
About the WMD forum, it's much, much, much better this time around. It's a lot more quiet and well mannered. People are more aware that it's not a simple forum, but a working enviroment. Maybe it's lacking a bit of heated discussion, but I'd rather have it like this than what the original WMD was.
All in all, it's still very interesting to see how the game is built. I have hopes that this time the game will be much more polished than PC1.