It's a bit before release now and before I get back to playing here are some good things and not so good things about the game as I'm probably about 80% through it now.
Pros:
- Combat is much improved. I've got to hand it to the lady who designed the system but it actually works pretty well, and the Soldier will probably turn out to be more useful than we all believed he would be - the weapons have relatively distinct strengths and drawbacks, and as far as I can tell only the assault rifle works against all types of defense. Direct damage powers (incinerate, throw, etc.) only have their intended effect when all defenses are destroyed and the enemy is left with only their health bar, but in the meantime they do some damage to defenses. Tech and Biotics both have powers specifically designed for reducing defenses as well.
- Pace. It's good, and varies a bit. As a whole it feels a lot more like KOTOR than ME, and that's good.
- Characters are all pretty well done, the adverts were always bullshit meant to draw in the Halo crowds. Subject Zero and especially Grunt are not nearly as ridiculous as they might seem initially. Mordin remains the best character.
- Exploring planets is now a bit better. You don't do any exploring of worlds ala ME1, instead you scour the planet using a sensor and send probes to collect resources. It's not bad, usually takes no more than a few minutes per planet. "Anomalies" that you investigate are relegated to approximately one planet per star system (there are several in a cluster) and in general these are about as robust as the side missions in ME1 which is to say they're usually boring.
- Jennifer Hale is great as Shepard. Meer is ehhh.
Cons:
- I'm disappointed by the "Loyalty" system. They played this part up a whole bunch but it really ends up just like any other Bioware game, wherein you go out and go on missions that are of personal interest to your squad and they get "loyal" when you complete them. It's not really bad, it's just a letdown since they made it seem like gaining trust would be, you know, hard. These side missions are actually quite robust otherwise, about as lengthy and involved as a core path mission.
- The inventory system's a letdown too. Maybe it's just the way Bioware's conditioned me, but it doesn't seem right somehow that I'm 80% through the game and I'm still using the submachine gun I started the game with. Far as I can tell there are three different variations per weapon type you can use (aside from heavy weapons, of which there are 5) and I'm tired of the machine pistol.
- No Lance Henriksen.
All in all this is probably the most consistently good game they've put out since Baldur's Gate II, and in my opinion it's much better than Dragon Age. I'm looking forward to ME3.