I found the first 4 -6 hours wicked slow.
It thought it got real good after I got out of the Citadel.

I did not enjoy Mass Effect at all. I eventually gave up after driving the Mako for a while. Mass Effect 2, on the other hand, is fantastic. It is probably my favorite game that has came out this year. So even if you give up on the first one, I still recommend playing the sequel. 

Well it actually has a main game story which is more than you can say about ME2. Niether are particularly fun to play. But if you have the PC version, I imagine there are some good mods that make it more manageable.

I enjoyed it very much from the beginning.

The first is tougher for newcomers to get into in this day and age sadly. It's not a bad game imo. Infact I prefer it over ME2 but ME2 is definitely easier to just pick up and play.

I fucking hate it and want to kill it and every developer at BioWare with a chainsaw. My biggest problem was that I played it for about 5-6 hours, and half of that was me being lost in the Citadel (or anywhere for that matter,) and the rest was me being completely confused as to where to go with only the thought of, "If these guys are shooting me, I guess I'm in the right place."

I would say it does pick up, but if it's the gameplay and kind of sloppy shooting mechanics that is detracting from your enjoyment, they don't change. On the other hand, ME2 fixes all that stuff. But if you're going to play ME2 you are going to get way more out of it if you finish the first one and import your character.

I'm on Noveria right now...I just drove the Mako up to...what's it called? Something 15...anyway, I'm seriously considering not finishing the game. I mean, I want to, I only just bought and started the game this week,  but I'm just finding it ridiculously boring.  
I'm seriously considering just going back to get 100% in Red Dead Redemption

its a slow game to get into.

I felt it too boring, and it never picked up for me, still i went all the way to the ending, in hope of a major twist - never happened. :( 
 
Still i loved the Mako. Exploring inhabited planets is such a blast! 

....no, its great. 
Even from that start its great. 
*shrugs*

" I'm on Noveria right now...I just drove the Mako up to...what's it called? Something 15...anyway, I'm seriously considering not finishing the game. I mean, I want to, I only just bought and started the game this week,  but I'm just finding it ridiculously boring.  I'm seriously considering just going back to get 100% in Red Dead Redemption "

I think you would like mass effect 2 more than part one. If you like one, you don't like the other one as much, vice versa.

I really liked it personally.

The first few hours are slow. Once you gain control of the Normandy, things start to pick up and get interesting. I found a lot of the charm in the characters you meet along the way.

Just my opinion, but I thought ME was horrible.  Never finished it.  ME2 was decent, still nothing to rave about by any means.

"I'm on Noveria right now...I just drove the Mako up to...what's it called? Something 15...anyway, I'm seriously considering not finishing the game. I mean, I want to, I only just bought and started the game this week,  but I'm just finding it ridiculously boring.  I'm seriously considering just going back to get 100% in Red Dead Redemption "

I have always had trouble getting into older games that other people thought were great. I've picked up games like Gears and Half-Life way too late and never gotten into them.  
I think I'll stick with ME until I reach around the 10 hour mark and if I'm still not enjoying it I'll just move on. From what I've heard on forums, the game takes up to 40 hours to complete and I'm not going to play a game I don't like for that long...

It's AWESOME, that is if you can get by the sometimes terrible gameplay, but story and rpg wise it's way better than ME2

Yeah it's good, but just like any other game, it might not be for everyone

It's better than the 2nd thats for sure..

The first Mass Effect just kinda sucks due to inventory and the checkpoint system. It may have aged a little badly, however. The pacing was also pretty slow in the beginning hours of the game. 1st in the trilogy syndrome, my friend.

" The first is tougher for newcomers to get into in this day and age sadly. It's not a bad game imo. Infact I prefer it over ME2 but ME2 is definitely easier to just pick up and play. "

" I have always had trouble getting into older games that other people thought were great. I've picked up games like Gears and Half-Life way too late and never gotten into them.

Arguably, if an open world game like Red Dead is your cup of tea, I seriously have to wonder why you bothered playing Mass Effect in the first place.
You sure you're not trolling?

I don't like the name of this blog post; furthermore, it annoys me how people believe a game to be awful simply because they do not like it. There are plenty of reasons why Mass Effect is a good game, however, if you don't enjoy it that is your own opinion. Your opinion of the game does not make the game bad; the qualities, good or bad, that the game exhibits make it good. I, for example, have always found JRPG's in general to be complete garbage. This is my opinion, not a fact. Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger are both good games that I simply do not like. Blanket statements such as "Mass Effect sucks?" is not an absolute; if you like the game play it, if not, get rid of it.

No, I'm not trolling. I'm not a one-genre man. I'm willing to try the majority of games and genres. I've only had my 360 for a year and a half so there's still a whole lot of games that I haven't gotten round to playing yet. 
I was gonna buy ME2 a while ago but a friend of mine told me that it was a lot better if you'd played the original so I bought it at a cheap price.

I like the first one more than the second. 

The first for hours are a borefest of conversations with 30 minuets of shooting, give or take, but  it packs up after that.

I thought it started out a little slow, but picked up fairly quickly, and I ended up really enjoying it quite a lot after getting to know the characters a bit.
 
It was also nice to be able to bring my ME character into ME2, and have the game remember and reference decisions that were made. If you're planning on playing ME2, it's worth sticking with it to understand the story. Personally, I think ME2 is easily one of the best games of the year, so far.

" I found the first 4 -6 hours wicked slow. It thought it got real good after I got out of the Citadel. "

It's an amazing game, I enjoyed it from the getgo
Although my friend hated it for the first 6 hours and then the game clicked with him and he loved it too
And Mass Effect is not a 40 hour game, I finished it on my first playthrough on normal 20 hours, insanity later 30 hours doing 100%

I really liked Mass Effect but there were parts of it that were not very good. I have yet to start playing the sequel.

It's great, but it's not exactly for everyone. The first one straddled the line a little wobbly between RPG and Shooter, and I can see it not pleasing either crowd that well. I found ME2 fixed a lot of those problems, but it remains a heavily story driven game with hybrid elements that don't click for everyone.

I guess if you're looking for action, the game can be slow at times. Another thing is the side missions can be a bit repetitive (same structure, same environments). But I think the people that really enjoyed Mass Effect are people who enjoy finding out more about the world by following the story and finding out more about the characters through their dialogs. Mass Effect 2 has much better pacing I think, and it's probably worth it to finish Mass Effect at least once to take your character over to ME2 :)

When i played it i made the mistake of exploring planets to find better loot...that made the game really slow. Just stick with the story, the side missions aren't worth the bother.
ME was really disappointing to me. ME2 had a much more interesting story but the combat still wasn't thrilling me.
But, yeah, i thought Mass Effect sucked too.

I absolutely dreaded Mass Effect 1 for its combat system as well as its slow progression.   Whereas Mass Effect 2 seems to address all of my concerns, (for the time I’ve put into it so far).  I finished Mass Effect 1  just for the game save.

" It might also be that the window to start with the first Mass Effect has passed. I mean, I still go back to ME to have a good time, but that is fueled by the fact that I played it when it first came out and that I'd been following every bit of information on that game leading up to its release. By today's standards, there are some very serious issues with that game. "

" The first is tougher for newcomers to get into in this day and age sadly. It's not a bad game imo. Infact I prefer it over ME2 but ME2 is definitely easier to just pick up and play. "

Maybe you just don't like RPGs. Whenever someone complains about a game because it's slow, it's almost inevitably an RPG. I actually found ME1 to be quite enjoyable. I spent the beginning of the game exploring and absorbing the lore and atmosphere, not looking for things to shoot. 

To be fair, Mass Effect 1 isn't very good on the gameplay side of things. In fact, it was probably at the bottom of my Bioware list until I played Jade Empire and realized how much of a mess that game was. 
 
I recommend soldiering on and beating the game (it's not that long anyways. Just don't do any of the terrible cookie-cutter side missions), if only so you can see the story and then import your character into ME2, which is significantly better.

Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are some of my favorite games on the 360, but they definitely aren't for everyone. I enjoyed every minute, but for some people it may take a few hours to get started, or never get started at all.