Thumbs up for ME:A
I liked it a lot. Combat was fun, looks like they fixed some of the weirder facial animations, and I liked the story. I didn't play it pre-patch, and the few times I tried to play the multiplayer I was matched with people a dozen or so levels higher than me and died instantly, but overall I think it was my second favorite after ME2.
Pros
- It was long.
- Lots of very different planets.
- Driving the Nomad was awesome.
- Combat (biotic, tech, weapons, and especially all three together) was fun.
- I liked the crew and Ryders.
- Pretty good with the fast travel points.
- Drack
- Vaults looked awesome.
- Some code I worked on (in a very tiny way) was mentioned in the huge Open Source part of the credits.
Cons
- It was long.
- Stuck on a loading screen forever bug, had to unplug the console to fix it.
- All characters on the Tempest have the same butt-first animation when you start talking with them.
- Talking with PeeBee in a crazy T-pose where her elbows flopped around.
- LTTP multiplayer seems really hard to get into, which bummed me out because I really liked it in ME3.
- Looks like the Quarian Ark will never be arriving.
Some of the game's shortcomings felt corporate. They're all the sort of bugs that the team making the game had to have been aware of, but EA had to hit a release date for their shareholders and the result is glitched. There's definitely an upside to companies like Valve and Nintendo that either are able or allowed to polish these things seemingly forever. Mass Effect: Andromeda does in many ways feel a bit rushed, but well worth it for me.