Nobody can answer this question for you, and there's not going to be consensus, it depends on what you're into. But the full DLC is clearly worth the coin for many of us.
Asobo made some very good decisions with respect to the airplanes. One of these is to make the planes fully featured airplanes and not just vehicles for the race module. Last night I ran a few races in P-51 Man O War, did okay and lifted my ranking a little, then switched to regular MSFS mode, jumped back in the same plane and flew it home to Camarillo. That combination of intense racing and a pleasant evening flight over photoreal mountains to a real destination was a lovely few hours and, for me, absolutely a $60 experience. I don't know if I would buy the DLC if it were a stand-alone game, but as an integrated expansion of my favorite FS, it hits the spot. Another good idea was the different cockpits and to some extent different flight models for each of the 10 planes in each class. It was very smart to include a bone-stock default plane for each class and then accurately reproduce several modernized and hotted-up ones. And the variation isn't superficial, they lavished a lot of attention on each plane and on each class. You can legitimately feel like you got 40 new planes, and obviously whether 40 new planes is worth $60 isn't even a serious question. If you are not so interested in different cockpits and performance variations and just perceive it as a bunch of skins for 4 airplanes (although I think to be fair, you would have to count the P-51s as 3 planes at a minimum since the P-51A and Voodoo/Strega are so different from the P-51Ds, and the Pitts' as at least 2 planes given the extent of mods on some of them, bringing you to 7 total truly distinct airplanes), then it becomes a closer question. If you're an eclectic virtual flyer and interested in all the categories of planes, 6 or 7 Asobo quality planes at $60 seems a fair value.
The quality of the airplanes is dead-center Asobo, consistent with the sim's stock planes. That means they are nice looking inside, okay looking outside for the most part, a bit light on systems depth and flight model fidelity, and opening canopies would be such an easy and obvious feature to implement that I have come to think that Asobo is just trolling us every time it puts out a plane without them. If you are the type who thinks nothing less than Aeroplane Heaven, A2A or Milviz level detail is worth paying for, then the entire set of planes may be worthless to you, and you should wait for good payware products for the planes you want. If you enjoy the stock planes and want these types at that quality level, they are outstanding value.
The actual race module is not everyone's cup of tea. The multiplayer racing mode really works smoothly, and they were smart to make sure that worked even if it meant leaving things like the pre-race cinematics comically unfinished and bug-ridden, which they surely are. I don't really know if it will catch on. My sense is that there are only about 3,000 total players, probably a lot fewer really active, and it is hard to find a race with more than 3 or 4 contestants most of the time. The racing has some cool effects with wake turbulence etc. but it is also quite simplified with the equalized performance and no engine management, so it may not have staying power. Air racing sims have been tried before and have died out, so this was a bit of a gamble.
August
