This review concerns the Xbox 360 version of the game.
The first Mass Effect game was a revelation to me, I had not played an RPG of that depth since the Kotor days on the original Xbox. I loved the sense of adventure the storyline had, it reminded me of the science fiction books I grew up reading. I loved the openness, size and freedom of the game world; that you could land and drive around on almost every planet. I loved the tactical gameplay, where you carefully picked which ammo and armor to give to you squad, and how you carefully placed each squadmember in a good tactical position before each combat situation. I even enjoyed mining for resources, as each new planet offered something new to look at, and perhaps even a surprise or two in form of enemy bases. The only flaws the game had in my eyes, were the occasional screen freezes.
Mass Effect 2 though, removed all the things I loved about the first game. Gone was the big open game-world, gone was the tactical preparation and gameplay, gone was the pleasure of exploring new planets. Most importantly perhaps, the storyline took a direction I could not appreciate nor attach myself to.
A Seven Samurai-inspired storyline could have worked had the characters been provided with enough depth, but the conversations run dry far too soon and you are left with just a shell of an NPC. Not that the first game offered a tonne of conversation, but if you are doing this style of narrative as in Mass Effect 2 you need more dialogue since you are stuck with the same characters for so long. In the first game you met considerably more characters, and thus each specific one did not need a massive amount of dialogue and conversation in order to appear sentient and convincing in their role.
The gameplay was the other big let-down. It felt more like an action game than an RPG, where thought-out tactics were replaced by cover-based shooting. Choosing weapons and which squadmates to go with you made little to no difference to your chances of success. Mining for resources felt utterly pointless since there were hardly any things to spend your money on and you couldn't even sell some of your mined resources anywhere. Lastly, carefully designed maps were replaced by similar-looking corridor shooting spots.
I also did not appreciate the repeating "fanservice", it made the game feel juvenile and cheap.
Lastly, there's that "screw-you" moment towards the end of the game, where you find out that you have been punished for exploring the game-world, for doing side-missions. This might have been intended as an artistic flair of instant-drama, but in my eyes it's an insult. These timed events are bad enough in action games like Dead Rising, they are even worse in RPGs. To me RPGs should be all about taking your time, exploring things. There's so little of that to begin with in Mass Effect 2, with the game-world being as small as it is, and then they smack in the face with something like this. It's as if the developers were torn between making an RPG and an action game, so the result is that you get a bad take on both. Even Alpha Protocol had a clearer sense of direction than this game.
There were a few positives though. The game ran perfectly on my Xbox 360, it did not have the screen-freezes the first game occasionally had. The music was excellent and memorable. Visually the game looks stunning even today, especially when compared to the first game. So in terms of production quality there's no doubt that Mass Effect 2 is an improvement over the first game.
As a conclusion, Mass Effect 2 feels like a "hickup" in the franchise to me, something that would have been more approiate as an off-shoot and not a main game.