I played the demo today. First, I did a 4-player race at a Best Buy event and the frame-rate was awful like Nicola said. Then I found a demo station at a Future Shop and played single player for about an hour using the Gamepad (only 8 tracks like the Gamespot demo).

Inward drifting bikes were pretty difficult to use, I had some trouble taking good lines with them. I mostly used Bowser/Wario+Circuit Special and was able to take every turn decently, but the demo was only 100cc.

Hopping after MTs just didn't seem as effective as it was in MKDS/MKWii/MK7. But there did seem to be some places where it was useful.

I found myself using delay drift a lot, but I'm not sure if it's because it's good in this game or just because I'm so used to MKWii/MK7.

Brake+drift seems to be back (MK7 tech), there's probably some places where it's useful.

An interesting note is that you can use D-pad for this game. For me, it actually controls as well as the joystick if not better... And softdrifting seems to be back although I can't verify if it's the same MT rate as a full drift (like MKWii). It also seems that you can softdrift with D-pad by pressing a diagonal (such as right+down).

For items: I think there was only 1 shock in about 20 races.

Overall, it was pretty much what I expected, looking forward to playing the full game .