While I'm not a fan of GM cars in general, I have to say, the interior looks great. It looks very European like my BMW. I wonder if this car comes with a 6 speed manual. As far as the exterior is concern, it's rather bland and has hints of VW in it, but not ugly.

The interior does look nice... what will the fit and finish be in three years?

Also, what's the world's fascination with 3-spoke steering wheels?

The car looks pretty good to me. People will have no problem buying GM cars as long as they are as good as the competition.

strange taillight designs, reminds me of those on the previous generation BMW 3 series (only the shape, of course... the configuration is different). Unless the Malibu has every standard feature the Camry/Accord has and even more, I don't think this will work out too well. Imagine this conversation:
Salesman: "So, this Malibu has A, B, and C standard, which are all optional features on this Camry and Accord"
Prospective Buyer: "But wait, this Camry has D standard/optional but the Malibu doesn't even offer it; and so does the Accord"
Plus, they're probably going to put base models of the Camry and Accord (like the ones without A/C lol) and compare it to the top-of-the-line Malibus

Actually the interior looks pretty sharp, wonder if the materials and fit and finish are any good, The silver plastic trim is particularly suspect, I hope it's not the stuff that discolors from exposure to skin oils and then peals off, but it kind of looks like it.

Shame the front end is so boldly ugly, compared to it's competitors which are simply bland.

They nearly got it right.
The front end needs to go back to the drawing board. To me it does not look the best.

Better than before but still a long way to go. It kinda reminds me of a Passat. I think GM needs to rethink spending $100 million on advertising. If the car is good, it should sell itself.

It's a good looking car, and a solid improvement over the previous models. The advertising is a necessary move. If Joe Shmoe thinks "Malibu", this is not the image that comes to his mind. People won't be aware of how revamped the car is unless you make them aware of it.

After thinking it over they should spend about 1/2 that $100,000,000.00 on hiring some quality exterior design specialists, and having them fix the front end and the rear tail lights, they are about the only things keeping this from being a good looking car.

Of course it should be a good looking car, because the more I look at the side profile and the general shape of the front and rear ends, the more obvious it becomes to me that this is a cheap copy of an Audi A6.

That's your opinion and you're completely entitled to it. I have mine, and it goes something like this. I like (not love) the front end. I don't even mind the tail lights. The interior looks great. A lot of people will probably enjoy the look over the Accord and Camry. If it was up to me, both ends would recieve a more aggressive look, but then it wouldn't sell as well as a mild mannered version, when pitted against the Accord or Camry. The looks are right where they need to be for the mainstream, so the money is better spent on advertising. Again, I'd prefer a meaner design, but the public seems to recently favor less than bold, particularly in your more affordable family sedans.

Also, the more I look at the side profile and general shape, the more it looks like other modern GMs. They're drawing a lot of their inspiration recently from their European and Australian branches (which is mostly a good thing). Look closer, you'll see it.

Looks much better than the last Malibu effort, it should do well. However, GM dealers have the bad habit of hiking up the price of potentially hit products, just as they hit the market. This has happened with Malibu's sister, the Saturn Aura. The Aura is a very good car, but it's reputation and sales have been damaged because of the pricing. I guess you can't blame the dealers too much...they want to capitalize on the very sparse numbers of desirable products GM has produced in recent years.

Nice. Kinda follows the SUVs with the giant rhinoceros front end. But I'm a sucker for a big nose even my gf has one. I hope they got the plastics right this time not the plastic rash-inducers manufactured out of re-manufactured reused remains of crude oil.

is it just me... or does this look like a cheap version of the Passat? what is going on with GM's design department, lately