I remember feeling intimidated by it to start with but I never hated it. It's now my favourite track of all time and I love to drive on it for hours, trying different cars and tweaking them then trying them again and seeing how different they feel. It's the perfect track because it has so much of what makes a race track enjoyable and it also has so much of what makes a race track a challenging experience. Sure, it's long but that would only be an issue if it was long and boring or long and badly designed. You don't even have time to notice how long it is when you finally get into the swing of things, you just go as fast as you can, always concentrating on the next corner, never looking back, like a horse on a skateboard you just roll with it.
PS: You can even set the time and weather! Dawn + moist conditions + powerful RWD car + no driving aids = my heaven.