So I recently completed Mass Effect 3 (finally, I know, but I've been busy...). This thread is not about the ending, I have my own opinions on that which I will explore briefly in a moment.
Whilst looking deep into my wallet and trying to decide upon which game to buy next with the pennies left in there, I concluded that I would play through Mass Effect 2 in the meantime - but this time with a renegade FemShep. And I am reaaally enjoying it. Now I can't speak for Mass Effect 1 as I have never played it (not owning an Xbox 360), but it was quite immediately apparent to me that ME2 catered much more to my tastes than ME3. I was very pleased with the battle gameplay and squad upgrades in ME3, but they are basically the only plus points of the game for me, when comparing to ME2.

In ME2 I love being able to talk to people for ages on the Normandy, with proper dialogue choices, almost after every mission. In ME3, at best you get a short monologue or recorded conversation which is a huge reduction of an important RPG element for me. I must concede that I continued my relationship with Miranda from ME2 into ME3, so this may have negated things further from my point of view, but there are other things too.

There is a real sense of getting to know your squad in ME2, and I loved the loyalty side missions that had clear, poignant connections to either Shepard's relationship to a member or the member's history. I didn't really care about my squad members all that much in ME3 - it was like the writers/developers were simply riding off the character development in the previous two games for this. And don't get me started on the relative lack of squad members from ME2 to ME3 either.

As for the ending, I didn't actually think it was as bad as people made out, but the fact that it raised so many questions (questions that I find it very hard to believe they can answer in the DLC) was basically what sealed the game as conclusively worse for me.

In the end, I was just disappointed that they couldn't quite keep up to the very high standard they set in ME2, for me. I enjoyed the game nonetheless, but it could have been done just that bit better. What do you guys think? I know I have one friend who simply professes that the original game is by far the best...

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to be honest i'm not a big fan of mass effect, i always thought it was over rated i guess that is just because i thought the first game was terrible and i think all of the games have had really bad gameplay but as far as story's go i prefer the second one, there is better character development and interaction in the second, and for me that is the only attraction i have towards the game.
however i don't dislike the 3rd one and i am a huge fan of the ending which i am not going to spoil. I enjoy the fact that they have (hopefully) ended the series which was very weird for an EA game series as they are money hungry..

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Sephiroth: "Cloud... You'll never let go of the darkness..."
Cloud: "Shut up."

nice comeback cloud....

Xaldin: "Is this the end?"
[he then dies]"

this is how it is actually written in imdb....

Now Sam I'm gonna assume that you played the PS3 versions of ME2 and ME3. As someone who has actually played all 3 Mass Effect games. I can say that Mass Effect 2 was the better game of all 3 games in my opinion. Out of all the Mass Effect games That I love going back to Mass Effect 2 is the game, I have beaten that game at least 4 times. While ME1 and ME3 I have only beaten once.

I found ME2 more enjoyable because of more squad members(I like that), more 1 to 1 dialogue interactions with NPCs, loyalty missions with other squad members, everything you do in the game can effect the success of the suicide mission and finally no Multiplayer that is not linked to the single player campaign.

When you talk about the ending of ME3, I found it as a pretty good ending. The people who complained about the ending because those people believe they deserve a good ending, but I do realize that there are some unanswered questions. So Bioware is not releasing a new ending it is more like an extended version of the current ending.

What Bioware tried to do with ME3 when they transitioned from ME2 was kinda like what Naughty Dog did for UC3. They both tried to make a better sequel then there 2nd title in there series but didn't succeed from the player's perspective. I'm not saying that these games are bad, their just not as good as the previous title.

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