So I started playing Mass Effect 2 the day it was released and finished it a few days later. I found it really engaging, relentlessly entertaining, charming and satisfying. However, I recently played all the way through ME1 in order to import a character into ME2 (couldn't do it the first time because the only character I beat the game with was called Miranda Shepard, and...yeah), and got a few hours into ME2, and just reached a point where I didn't want to play it anymore. Instead, I picked up Dragon Age for a third playthrough, and have been so consumed by the awesomeness of Dragon Age that I haven't picked up ME2 since. And I'm not sure I'll want to pick it back up when I'm done with Dragon Age. And I don't really understand why.
 
Let's make no mistake about it; Mass Effect 2 is a five star game. It significantly improves some of the biggest flaws with the original game, and since it's BioWare the dialogue and world design is absolutely top notch. But I've found that the more I think about that game and my time spent with it, the more I think that ME2 is really a one playthrough game, which is unusual for a BioWare game, especially since I beat ME1 three times, and as I said, I'm working on my third Dragon Age playthrough. Maybe it's just that the combat is quite clunky and unengaging, or maybe it's because the dialogue and story are much less special the second time around, but I figured that my second playthrough with my imported character would really make that game click with me. My second Dragon Age playthrough was better than my first, and the same goes to Fallout 3. But there is something that is pushing me away from what is ostensibly an excellent game. Could it just be Mass Effect fatigue caused by playing through the original and trying to go straight to the sequel? Could it be that the disappointment I felt with the stripping away of some of the key RPG gameplay aspects has caught up to me? Is it something to do with the buzz that the game caused after people finished it? Has my extreme Dragon Age love affected my perception of ME2? Or is it just that ME2 is an absolutely awesome game...once?

all games are one playthrough games for me

You are not alone.  I played through it once and was done after that.  Your post makes me think I might also like dragon age.  I have avoided it because it hear it should really be played on the PC.  Is your love for dragon age on the PC or Xbox?

" You are not alone.  I played through it once and was done after that.  Your post makes me think I might also like dragon age.  I have avoided it because it hear it should really be played on the PC.  Is your love for dragon age on the PC or Xbox? "

I think that Mass Effect 2 doesn't nearly have as many branching paths during conversations as Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout 3, meaning you do get stuck in a lot of the slower conversations you've seen before, and a lot of the cool parts of ME2 are the shock at either how cool what you just did was, or in the game's few (but relatively interesting) plot twists. Yet still, I've made up a few different new Sheps for a second playthrough, and I've found that trying the game on Insanity with a class different from the one you played your first time through is worthwhile, albeit a little cheap. 
 
But still, I haven't quite beaten that second playthrough yet, and haven't found myself nearly as pressed to as I was with my first playthrough of the game.

I got to around my third playthrough --my insanity run-- and I just couldn't play it anymore. I love that game to death but I don't even think I could even pick up any DLC for it.

I played it twice, the second time on Insanity and I'm definitely not going to play it again anytime soon.

" @Scullinator:  I have put about 150 hours into the Xbox 360 version of Dragon Age. Don't believe the hype. I'm sure the PC version is better, but the console versions are still totally awesome. The slightly inconvenient menu navigation and less impressive visuals are outweighed by the advantage of being able to sit back on your couch with your feet up and experience the gory brilliance. Besides, the dialogue and story telling is the same, and in many ways that's the best bit.  If Dragon Age was a woman, I'd make love with her over and over again. "

Funny, I had kinda the opposite reaction. I was steaming through DA, and then ME2 came out and stole away my game time. Beat ME2 three times since, and my DA save hasn't progressed much father than since I left it. The streamlined nature of ME2 just grabbed me I guess. It's like a great one and a half hour action movie in my mind, something I can just sit down and watch again and again. DA is sitting there like the Lord of the Rings extended-cut trilogy, impressive, but not something I can really invest in at the moment.

" all games are one playthrough games for me "

I've played it twice, and I don't see myself playing it again. But that's probably because my PC has been having problems lately.

Sorry but i have to respectfully disagree with you.  I've played through ME1 many times myself but i never started a new game immediatly after the last playthrough(some times i do it just to see the opening sequence again but that's it).  It's true that some of the shock and awe moments are lost during the 2nd playthrough but i find that if you take a break between playthroughs then you don't burn out of the game so fast. 
 
IMO, Mass Effect is like a good movie that every now and then you'll get the urge to go back and watch again.  It's a bit less exciting since you know the outcome but the story is so awsome that you enjoy the ride no matter how many times you've seen it. 

Same.
 
I tried a second ME2 playthrough and didn't get past the opening area. I can't really put my finger on it either. I loved the game (I even had a wierd thing for the planet mining game) and felt like I should be playing it again, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. 
 
I keep telling myself that it's because I don't want to change anything that happened in my first playthrough. What happened in my first playthrough, as far as I'm concerned, is all that ever can and will happened. The ending of the game came across perfectly and the events that happened, for me, were what would have happened if ME2 was a film.
 
Anyway...that's my thinking. I don't want what's happened to change at all, 'cos if it did I would go through some horrible period of denial. Also, I have the complete opposite with Dragon Age too. I have about 7 characters (mostly for the achievements, obviously) but each of them have a good chunk of time put in to them and I know that, at some point, I'm going to go through with most of them and try to find as many little differences in the story as I can. Can't put my finger on why that game is different from ME2 though...it really is kinda wierd.

After the obvious caveat that different people will enjoy games to different degree and have different playstyles. I disagree with the OP, I enjoyed both games and finished both multiple times (DA:O twice and ME2 four, probably finish it a fifth after the new dlc comes out) but from a storyline point of view I didn't feel DA:O branched that much, with the exception of the final choice. In the other hand I felt the Paragon vs Renegade gave me a more consistent alternate universes product of my game choices.
 
Now, I don't mean DA:O didn't give you choices, every conversation had mulitple responses and every mayor quest had two different outcome, but somehow to me, it didn't feel as I was creating different worlds by making the different choices. I think in part it had to do with the knowledge that my ME2 choices will impact ME3, (even if it is just an email of someone saying: hey remember when in ME2 you could have killed me but instead saved me) . and the party approval system made me game almost every conversation to try to max my minions, I mean party member approval ( I know, I know it was my choice and I could just have stick to a single personality and accepted the consequences). 
 
Ultimately I feel both games offered multiple playthroughs, if you are the kind of person that enjoys playing the same game multiple times in order to experience different stories. From a gameplay point of view I do agree that DA:O offered more pronounced ability to play the game differently, through ME also did it, just to a lesser extent.

ME1 was the same way for me. I think if you give it some time you'll be able to go back to the game and play through.

I havent started ME2 yet but i had that problem for ME1. I beat it once and when i played it again i got bored at the citadel and stopped. I thought that was the games problem for me because i would have to spend over an hour running errands and the citadel and by the time i was done i just didnt want to play anymore

@Atlas: I don't know why, but after finishing awakening, I am not so sure about the ability to import your character for DA 2, maybe it is they very limited way that the DA:O choices impacted awakening, or maybe it is my completly unfunded feeling that you wont play DA 2 as the same character than origins but rather it will be set a number of years in the future of DA:O, similar to fallout 2 vs fallout 1. 
 
Paradoxically I feel that the limited choices of ME make them feel more real to me, because there are normally only 2 ways a particular situation can go, it is easier for them to make the world react to it. For example it always felt to me, that by naming your character in ME, the dialog felt more personal and natural than in DA, where they always had to call you warden.

" I got to around my third playthrough --my insanity run-- and I just couldn't play it anymore. I love that game to death but I don't even think I could even pick up any DLC for it. "

I have 3 playthroughs in it and still think about going back... I like it because you get to see all the different awesome Paragon/Renegade interrupts and you get to do things totally different. How can that not be called replayability?

I haven't played ME2 for a second time yet, but I'm planning too. So I dunno; I played the first game twice, I don't see how I'd be put off playing the sequel twice.

I rented it so for me it is. I don't really have the desire to replay games very often though, especially not single player-only games.

I'd freaking love to finish my second playthrough on insanity, but the time commitment is too great since I can't play that game for short sessions (especially not on insanity, where one particularly hard fight can last hours).

it is one of those games that even if you only play it once, is totally worth the money because of how quality the game is. I think it has playthrough value because it will be fun to see what happens in ME3 with the choices you make.

I put it down for a bit and played Heavy Rain and some GoW 3 and now I'm back into ME2 on my 2nd play through and hooked. I'm doing one mission per night, choosing many dialog options in the opposite way I did the first time and seeing some interesting new moments. A lot of the same ground is tread, but in small bites it's been really satisfying. I still haven't beat DA:O though. That game demands large chunks of time that I don't have to give lately.

it's at least a 2 play through game

Well I did four mass effect 1 playthoughs, the first three I tried out different choices and increased the difficulty and the fourth I made every decision so that I could import a shepard that I had done everything the way I wanted it.  Mass effect 2 I have finished 2 playthroughs and am on my third on insanity.  I definitely think this game deserves more than one playthrough 

Commenting on the title: No. Not for me, anyway.
 
I've beaten it twice, played through with a Sentinel before I got bored and switched to Infiltrator, half-way through that I switched over to Adept. Going to finish the Adept run then finish the Infiltrator, then try either Soldier or Engineer.
 
...if I can pry myself away from other games. MW2, Just Cause 2 and Rome: Total War are the ones I'm currently playing, if I don't go back to ME2 soon then I'll have Red Dead Redemption on my hands...

"  So I started playing Mass Effect 2 the day it was released and finished it a few days later. I found it really engaging, relentlessly entertaining, charming and satisfying. However, I recently played all the way through ME1 in order to import a character into ME2 (couldn't do it the first time because the only character I beat the game with was called Miranda Shepard, and...yeah), and got a few hours into ME2, and just reached a point where I didn't want to play it anymore. Instead, I picked up Dragon Age for a third playthrough, and have been so consumed by the awesomeness of Dragon Age that I haven't picked up ME2 since. And I'm not sure I'll want to pick it back up when I'm done with Dragon Age. And I don't really understand why.   Let's make no mistake about it; Mass Effect 2 is a five star game. It significantly improves some of the biggest flaws with the original game, and since it's BioWare the dialogue and world design is absolutely top notch. But I've found that the more I think about that game and my time spent with it, the more I think that ME2 is really a one playthrough game, which is unusual for a BioWare game, especially since I beat ME1 three times, and as I said, I'm working on my third Dragon Age playthrough. Maybe it's just that the combat is quite clunky and unengaging, or maybe it's because the dialogue and story are much less special the second time around, but I figured that my second playthrough with my imported character would really make that game click with me. My second Dragon Age playthrough was better than my first, and the same goes to Fallout 3. But there is something that is pushing me away from what is ostensibly an excellent game. Could it just be Mass Effect fatigue caused by playing through the original and trying to go straight to the sequel? Could it be that the disappointment I felt with the stripping away of some of the key RPG gameplay aspects has caught up to me? Is it something to do with the buzz that the game caused after people finished it? Has my extreme Dragon Age love affected my perception of ME2? Or is it just that ME2 is an absolutely awesome game...once? "

i'm on my 3rd play

I haven't gone back to ME2 yet but I am pretty lazy when it comes to second playthroughs.

Yeah i've also noticed that too, there is alot to do and yes it's probally fatige from scanning in all the planets. Still my first playthough I was a paragon, the other one I wasn't. I made different choices for more variety in gameplay.

I played Mass Effect 2 trought 3 times.

Nah I reckon there's a couple playthrough's worth from the game, though second generally isn't as great.
 
Not as good as Mass Effect 1 though.

I finished ME2 3 times and Dragon Age 4 times. I tried to go back to ME2 for the Firewalker pack but I got bored after 10 minutes. Granted, it is a very shitty DLC pack. Now I'm playing through Awakening for the second time and shooting some fools in BC2 whenever I feel like it. 
 
I can't see myself playing anymore Mass Effect in 2010.

I also felt a little weird doing a second playthrough, after how accomplished I felt with my first playthrough. But after a few hours I really got into my new Shepard, and it made the whole second playthrough feel almost as fresh as the first. Now I don't know how I'll go back to my first playthrough, because my mind's really stuck on the second. That's why I'm going to re-do my paragon playthrough on insanity mode before the third game's release.

" it is one of those games that even if you only play it once, is totally worth the money because of how quality the game is. I think it has playthrough value because it will be fun to see what happens in ME3 with the choices you make. "

Heavy Rain is one of the few games I'd consider as a one playthrough game.

Same here. I played through Mass Effect 1 multiple times but I just can't bring myself to play ME2 twice.

That's weird. The classes in ME1 have the same playstyle so it's kinda repetitive if you play it twice. But in ME2, since the classes play so differently, you need to adjust your tactics and playstyle so the gameplay itself changes even though it's the same scene. If you do want to replay in ME2, do not play new game+. It is not worth it at all. Also, in ME1 a higher difficulty only resulted in higher hp enemies. The tactics are really the same except you take a longer time to kill your enemies. A higher difficulty in ME2 would challenge you tactically and force you to know the battle inside out.

only played ME1 once. instantly started up a second playthrough after finishing my first on ME2. There's a whole different game to be played, i changed sex, morality and play style. If any game is a more-than-one-playthrough game it's this, i feel.