There's been plenty of attention surrounding Hot Wheels Unleashed ever since it was first announced back in February this year, and its release is fast approaching later this week on Thursday, September 30.

The first reviews have just dropped for the game across the web, so here's what the verdict is so far:

IGN (9/10)

"Fun, fast, and damn near photorealistic at times, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a surprising and brilliant arcade racer. Carefully detailed, highly customisable, and buoyantly uncynical, this toy racer defies all expectations with remarkable attention to detail, excellent track design, and an accessible handling model that still rewards high skill. The racing may be tiny but make no mistake: this game is enormous fun."

Nintendo Life (7/10)

"As it stands right now, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a fun racer whose fantastic selection of cars makes up for its relative lack of varied course environments. With updates and DLC it has the potential to become a brilliant mess of licensed properties in the way the best mash-up games are, but what’s here is a solid enough foundation to start from, even if it’s a little samey at launch."

Push Square (7/10)

"Hot Wheels Unleashed is a rock solid arcade racing game that gets a lot of things right, but doesn't quite measure up in some areas. The drift-heavy handling and physics-based mayhem create super fun action on the track, and the cars themselves are as good to look at as they are to drive.

While the tracks tend to feel a bit samey and the random nature of unlocks may lead to some frustration, the end result is a robust racing game that'll appeal to fans young and old."

VG247 (3/5)

"I enjoyed playing Hot Wheels Unleashed a lot. The racing is straight up fun thanks to a top notch handling model that really makes the most of some impressive powersliding mechanics. But I can't help but wonder what could have been had we not got a game brimming with DLC and tied, to its detriment, to uninspired track environments."

The reviews are fairly positive so far, then, with the actual racing mechanics being highly praised by almost everyone. The Metacritic score is still being calculated, but it looks like it'll sit around the 70 mark.

Are you picking up Hot Wheels Unleashed this week? Let us know down in the comments below.