Getting the itch to play a good racing game and this seems to be the best recent release. The last sim I played was I believe Gran Turismo 3 and I was never any good. Hated passing the license tests and all that. I know Forza has a lot of assists and such. Is it a pretty decent introduction for someone new to the genre?

Not sure, but over the course of the Forza games I've gone from a PGR/RalliSport Challenge fan to someone who plays all car classes with all assists (bar braking lines so I don't have to learn a track's braking points for my car before I can do a decent job at racing on it) off (although I still use an auto gearbox, it's next on my list of things to learn to play with to keep things exciting).

I think Forza does a great job of taking away the sim issues if you don't want to deal with listening for tyres losing grid, care with the throttle, or any of that stuff (via assists) while providing all the information and tools you need to drive courses 'blind' (driving line to indicate their idea of where the corner should be taken and speeds, rewind to make it very fast to recover from a mistake and see where you went wrong). And you can slowly ease yourself into not relying on any of that by switching it off as you progress while going back to lower car classes where it is easier to learn (while still progressing your campaign / trying out some fun cars and earning rewards to buy more cards) or keep it on and have the higher speed along of the top car brackets make for a learning curve. The leaderboard ranks everyone who didn't hit a wall/car/go off track/use rewind in a lap above everyone who did and so if you care at all about global or friend leaderboards then there is a good incentive for making a fast lap without rewinding or messing up in another way (you can also see what assists everyone around you was using when they did their lap but you don't get penalised for placement so playing with assists is encouraged vs playing and hitting walls/cars by the leaderboard ranking system).

Obviously YMMV, I not sure how much freedom there is in the demo to experiment but you should definitely try it, assists on, and see what you think. The full game should be reasonably cheap, I'm not sure if MS are doing the same thing as Forza 3 and releasing a GotY with all the DLC (Forza 4 had to add Porches as an expansion pack due to EA refusing to give up their exclusivity for Forza 4's launch date, despite them being in older games, so a GotY would be a great option if Ms are making one) and if you can find a box of Forza 3 then it isn't a totally different game. The campaign structure is slightly different and the lighting isn't quite as refined but Forza 3 drives like Forza 4 and there isn't a lack of content in there so if you see Forza 3 (especially the GotY for some extra content) for $5-10 I'd jump at it.

its great, the Forza games have always been great at catering the new comer or the hardcore.

Yeah it's pretty great. They have an assist system set up where at the most basic level you are only steering, the game handles the gas and brake. You can go from only steering all the way down the crazy sim racing hole, I love Forza 4. Shame the new one looks more arcade-y

Yeah, as others have stated above, Forza's pretty good at easing someone into the racing sim genre. There aren't any license tests, so the only obstacle to reaching harder races is driver level, which goes up rather quickly though just about any manner of racing. The credits you earn increase if you have more assists turned off, but the base level of credits is still enough to buy any desired cars or upgrades at a reasonable pace. Unlimited rewind also makes Forza 3 & 4 way more tolerable in single-player than a lot of racing sims, since you're rarely locked into the consequences of concentration lapses or bullshit AI incidents.

If you enjoyed the idea of Gran Turismo 3 and just hated the difficulty and license tests, you should enjoy Forza 4. I wouldn't expect a GOTY version until October or November at the earliest, and the car packs seem to get temporarily discounted a few times a year should any of those trip your fancy, so I'd definitely let that factor into any purchasing decisions you might make.

Because the assists can make the game easier than Need for Speed games. And you can start letting them go one-by-one, which is really helpful for mastering the little nuances involved. Now I play with very minimal assists, pretty much just AT, and I mainly drive by feel with the wheel.