Its doesn't drive anything like shift thank god! There will be moments when something in the visuals will remind you of shift but handling wise they are absolutely worlds apart. For me PCars is the game that shift should've been before EA messed it up, the game it should have been and some!
I have had my reservations as i've played as to how well they've got the controller dialled in but as they finish tweaking the physics and the controller setup it is really coming together (GT3 tier is my personal favourite).
Compared to DC though it is much less forgiving to drive (as you'd expect in a sim). You are going to need to respect car physics, mid corner braking etc. is going to cause problems. If you play and like GT/Forza though you should have no problems adapting.
PC does an excellent job of raw racing excitement, the sounds and the atmosphere is top notch, way above the other console sims.
I really hope people enjoy it, its been a lot of work across the entire community let alone the dev team for what now feels like years!