From some angles the front looks great, but the 3/4 shot makes it look awkwardly sloped forward. The slant of the DRL's isn't as noticeable straight from the front, but it looks strangely elongated from the side, and it exaggerates how the headlights sweep around the sides to hide the overhang.
As for the lights themselves, I'm glad that it seems like MAYBE HID's will be standard like in the MkV, but time will tell what they decide for us heathen North Americans. I still prefer the MkVI's "blade"-like HID's though. Those look really sharp.
The red stripe I'm mum about... It's not bad, but it was an unnecessary alteration. The MkVI's double stripe was much better, I think. It also begins to look a bit awkward and slanted at extreme angles, like the lights themselves.
The Hofmeister Kink-like C-pillar on the two-door is growing on me, but the more graceful swoop on the MkV and VI is still better to my eye. It's nice how it parallels the cut of the body panel and tail lights, though. I'm sad to see that the four-door still has a more awkward C-pillar than the 2-door. If the 4-door would adopt more of a kink like the 2-door, that would look really sharp. The bottom of the C-pillar on the 4-door still looks like it can't decide whether or not it wants to kink forward or not, and there's this little whimper of an angle as the rear glass meets the door panel.
I like the rear lights, though not the way they suddenly truncate where the body panel ends, like in the MkV. It's like they forgot to finish off the shape and defaulted to the line of the panel. I guess it's also cheaper that way because you don't have to plasma-cut that little section of metal off like on the MkVI's rounded lights. Other than that, the lights look pretty sharp, like it came right off an Audi. I don't even mind the crease on the hatch. It lines up well with the white stripe through the light, which in turn lines up perfectly with the character line running down the side.
The interior (besides the wheel) looks great, with a couple caveats (and one big one). The pedals don't look as cool as the MkVI's, and I wish they kept the bottom-hinged look of the gas pedal, though I understand they are very similar to the pedals featured in recent Audi's. I sincerely hope they pulled from the parts bin on that one exclusively for the concepts with the real ones to be revealed later. The rubber-studded slabs of aluminum of the VI look better to my eye. All around the shifter I see a lot of buttons that will almost all be replaced by placeholder buttons when it comes to the US. Cool to see that the manual's knob is a golf ball once again, though I question its ergonomics compared to the more naturally-shaped MkVI's.
There's this bizarre visual dissonance that VW keeps including in the center console, mainly the padding on the sides of the navigation panel as it meets the HVAC cluster's side padding. It just doesn't line up. I don't know if that's that way on purpose to induce visual interest or something, because it was like that on the VI, too, though I don't know about the V. And I agree with the other posters here that the shiny plastic trim around the instrument cluster/nav display/HVAC cluster is low-tier. It looks decent, but the matte plastic of the VI was a nice touch.
Now, for the BIG HUGE disappointment, for me, anyway. That steering wheel. I hate it. I tried to justify it to myself because I really wanted to like this car. I just can't. It's too awful. It doesn't look bad, but every time I look at the VI's wheel, my heart sinks a bit. My friend owns a beautiful MkVI, and when I drive it or sit in it, it's the best part of the car. That's the one part of the car you're sure to touch 100% of the time ALWAYS, and it's a BIG step back from the MkVI. I just can't defend it. I can vouch for the red stripe and the shiny plastic and the ricey fender badge just a tiny bit, but that wheel may be the one thing that makes this car a no-go for me. Looking at the regular Mk7 Golf, it's the same steering wheel (the grip, not the center controls/horn/spokes). It's nearly exactly the same. Even the thickness is pretty much the same. It's a bit hard to see, but I think it's true, right down to that wimpy bottom flat part and those sad excuses for thumb notches at 9 and 3 and those downright anemic grips at 10 and 2. It's not perforated or dramatically chiseled or sculpted like the VI's and V's was. It's a big letdown. Granted, I've not seen it in real life or touched it, but knowing how the VI's looks and feels, it makes me sad. It may be too late, but I sincerely, sincerely hope that there was just a procurement chain delay somewhere in the making of these concepts. I really hope they retrofitted the wheels with the grips from the stock Golfs because the real ones weren't ready, but that may be futile.
Here's to hoping!
P.S. Doubtful the LSD will come to America. Pessimism!