DiRT is the first racing game in the Colin McRae series not to solely focus on the rally championship. It features other offroad events with vehicles like buggies, jeeps or trucks all licensed from the manufacturers. Races are not always solo against the times of other drivers, but up to eight cars often race together on a single track.

The main game mode is the career where you work your up a pyramid of different tiers with events ranging from normal Rallies over Crossover or Corr to Hill Climb. For every event you complete successfully, you get points and money. Money is used to buy new cars. While the amount of money depends on choosing one of the five difficulty levels, the amount of points depends on your final result in the event; you receive the maximum of 10 points for completing an event with a first place regardless of the difficulty level. These points are needed to unlock new events in the current tier. If you have gathered enough points the next tier will be automatically unlocked so you don't need to do every race in a tier in order to unlock the final event at the top. The difficulty level not only influences the strength of the other drivers, but also how critical the damage is upon hitting obstacles. Some events are further split up into two or three races where the damage is carried over and the allotted sixty seconds worth of damage repair is not offered after every subevent. The main parts that can be repaired are the engine, turbo, exhaust, gearbox, bodywork, wheels, suspension, cooling system and it is also possible to clean the entire car.

All events feature several licensed true-to-detail-vehicles which also have a detailed damage model. Each vehicle can in addition be tuned in several categories like engine or suspension before each event. To help you make it even more individual, you can create your own look of the car with several dozens predefined kits. There are also 182 different liveries to collect in the game and 46 different cars.

In addition to the career mode, the game features the classic Colin McRae rally mode with four championships where you need to proof your worth in several car categories like 2WD or Classic. Of course you can also do a time trial, a single event or a single race.

If you're tired of driving only against the AI, you can go online and compete against up to 100 other players at the same time. An official ranking ladder is also available. After each race your best times can be compared directly to other drivers worldwide.