He's kind of right though. PD is very very good at refining the core theme of what their game is. Beautiful cars and tons of them, lots of tracks, hardcore simulation (in relation to other console games, at least). They've been expanding that by bringing in other car varieties, be it rally or nascar or whatnot. Which is awesome. I don't think they're trying to downplay that.
But in terms of actual innovation I think Forza is doing a lot more. The community stuff they have set up in Forza 2 is already pretty great, and from the sounds of it that's only going to grow. Forza pushed the envelope with damage, custom paint jobs, tuning and body mods, AI, and online racing. They also created a better means of easing players in and teaching them how to play without frustrating them with the driving line, and they are extending that much farther in Forza 2 with rewind and auto breaking.
Alot of these features are things you and I will never use (auto breaking,
rewind, driving line, and all the aids are getting turned off first thing when I boot the game up), but they help to lower the barrier to entry that exists for a lot of people. And I think that's a really great thing, because, let's face it. Behind all the beautiful graphics that lure you in, the car lust that makes these sort of games desirable, and the presumed feeling of familiarity that goes with the idea that "these cars drive like real life", these games are HARD. Put the average joe gamer down in front of the game if he's not used to racing games, and in anything but a dodge Neon he'll be in the dirt on the first corner, and now he might be upside down
It remains to be seen if GT5 is going to take the commanding lead again in terms of pulling the genre in new directions and offering new experiences, but for now I think it's tough not to say that Forza is taking GT's idea and doing some really unique and cool things with it.
Oh yea, and the logo is clever as hell, as others have said.