Still everyone has different views on things but for me AC when setup correctly feels most natural to me. Ive used most other sims and got all current ones but really dont drive them much any more. I wish AC did a few other things better but the basic driving model is what keeps me churning out laps here. Also agree its much cheaper then real racing but I never got into bikes as cars normally dont hurt unless your quite unlucky and I never got hurt driving real cars.
Im not sure how it works if using paddles on a manual car as I really havent tried. Other then we found in some cars its quite a bit slower with paddles but others not much difference. Its more likely to mis gears and damage the engine or transmission with the shifter but its never slower then using paddles in any official cars and some it may be a bit quicker especially the manual lotus street cars.
Still in the end you may prefer something else and thats the beauty of having a few options these days. There should be at least one sim that feels better to you. There is no perfect sim and never will be but they are all getting a bit better these days.
Anyone with real world experiance shouldnt jump into a sim and need to relearn how to drive which seemed to be the case in the past. Im pretty sure you have never jumped into any car and not been able to get it around a lap without crashing, sure pushing the limits is another thing.
Also in a sim you lose lots of feel you get in a real car but AC using the same techiques that worked well on real tracks also work well in the game. Many others you needed to drive very differently to get the most put of the cars and thisbis what to me turned me off many of those.
