TL:DR => Good combat, lame animations and face expressions, average but not generic story. I liked it, as it's another game in my favorite universe. And every time I can learn more about it is not wasted time. But someone who didn't play in ME1-3 will find it to be average. Also lots of comparisons to Witcher 3.

Pros:
- Good graphic
- Really good combat
- Generally bugfree
- We don't learn in first 30 min who's our arch enemy and who we will have to kill
- Interesting lore that expands original trilogy universe
- Less filler quests than in Wither 3
- Menus aren't cluttered with useless positions
- Ability to use any powers / abilities we want due to lack of class restrictions

Cons:
- Story doesn't have any kind of "wow" moment
- Bad mimic and awkward NPCs body language
- Only 3 active powers during combat
- Companions look interesting, but are shallow
- Lack of paragon / renegade prompts
- There are literally 9 "action prompts" in whole game
- Semicircular text fields are weird design choice
- Lack of "next mission is point of no return" notion
- No BW-style love scene at the end of the game ( :wtf: )
- Lack of DLC

Story:

I didn't expect much from story, I just wanted it to not have plot holes or things not in line with original trilogy. And I get what I wanted. First of all we don't know for long time what is out main enemy here - Ketts? Scourge? Angars? Nothing is so terribly predictable like it was in Witcher 3. There are connections to original trilogy events (like Overlord DLC, Liara T'soni research, other crew mates). Which was super satisfying to hear and think "yeah, I remember this. I did this".

And at the same time the more we know about story the more it feels like it was re-used ME 1-3 idea. And storytelling level of Witcher 3 is so ridiculously above ME:A that it's pointless to even try to compare those 2 games together. Game ending is similar to DA:I, so it shows next villain and leave with impression "more soon". But we know that this soon may be delayed for few years so it feels weak. EA dropped support for this game not long after release, so we won't see any DLCs for single player. Which is lame, I'd like to know what happened to Quarian ark. And reading novel that's based on DLC script feels lame. It wouldn't be mine story anymore.

Companions are as interesting as tissue paper. Sadly. I really wanted them to be deep, and wanted to know more about them. But they aren't even on DA:I characters level. They have literally 2 or 3 short stories about them plus some dialogues. They don't say interesting stories about their people. Or their past. So it's nowhere ME:2 companions level.

Combat & Abilities:

Combat is really good. ME:A is open world game, so devs completely rebuilt combat to adjust it to open areas. And it works well. Only limitation is ability to use 3 powers at time, as changing favorite preset resets power regeneration. Which makes power swapping pointless.

We can either prefer more direct approach and use shotgun with cloak, shield and charge. Or combination focused with incercinate, throw and freeze. We can still hide behind covers and pick enemies from distance or charge on them like a Krogan. And both approaches feel equally good. At first power-dependent build (so the one I always use) felt inferior, but we get upgrade that cut recharge time of all powers by 50% at some point, so it wasn't problem to give my enemies explosive greetings :]

We can pick and use any ability we want from soldier, engineer or biotic tree. But as we can use only 3 abilities that need time to recharge at a time it's good to focus on passives and only 3 - 4 active abilities. We can change class any time, so we can use sentinel class now and change it to pure engineer few minutes later (there are certain bonuses that came with classes). Respec is easy and cheap, so I didn't have to worry I will invest my points poorly and wouldn't be able to reverse it (like in W3).

Our companions in combat act more like moving ducks than serious help. They have rare problems with path finding, can start to shoot in enemy and continue even when they moved around a corned and are currently shooting at a wall. They also have problems with path finding outside of combat, so game just teleport them to us.

Crafting, Inventory, Menus:

Crafting is easy and not filled with unnecessary schemes, components are abundantly found during exploration or can be bought in shops. It's easy to get rid of all junk to earn money, and then sell unwanted weapons or armors. Plus it's really hard to fill inventory, so there is no need to go back often to hub area to sell things. Main in-game menu is the same as it was in previous games (devs added classes sub-menu to give ability to change them quickly in combat), so it will be intuitive for people that played in ME2 and ME3. What more to add here? It's way better than menus and crafting from Witcher 3, that's for sure. And shows how bad this aspect was in W3, as I had to write separate paragraph to address issues there.

Quests:

There are few quest types:
- main quests - they advance the story and are generally interesting. They will be more interesting for people that don't know plot of original trilogy, as they won't have this "it's again the same theme" feeling. But looking only at ME:A it's ok. At least it was for me.
- side quests - on planets. They involve solving various settlements, terra-forming planets, solving Nexus problems. They don't feel forced or pointless. After all when you have vault on planet that can make this ass-cold planet a lot warmer why not doing this? Missions aren't also auto-accepted, so it's possible to not do them at all. Still I feel that theme of Architects was not used properly, I hoped there will be more to it.
- loyalty missions - some are nice - like fight on ship with shifting gravity or looking for remnant artifacts. But at the same time they are really short. And some feel like they were made just to be there and fill companion thread hole. So I won't give thumbs up or down in this category.
- filler mission on planets - go there, collect this, come back and return the goods. Rather standard and optional. They are gathered under "others" category in journal and their progress is not shown on the map. There are only 2 simple missions that are shown there: collect edible plants and mineral samples. But it's like 2 items per big map so it doesn't feel like big deal. And doesn't feel as pointless as "collect rocks on every map in DA:I"

Ryder and gameplay:

Game is surprisingly bugfree. Only rare problem I saw was weird flickering of background during conversation with NPCs (though Fnord informed me that in his game NPCs started conversations in "T" positions. But I never saw it). Ryder is not really likable. I mean it's dude / girl in their mid-20's taking care of business of whole new galaxy. Rookies without real experience Srsly? Shepard looked more mature and reliable here.

Using NewMako aka Nomad would be more enjoyable if it wouldn't be so slow, can't-drive-uphill and can't-jump-higher-than-2-m-up vehicle. We scan for minerals on the ground with Nomad scanner, but there is also ME2 theme of scanning planets from orbit. And we can collect minerals when we're on foot. So in total 3 ways of getting them. But scanning from orbit will give you 100 iron. And picking up lump of iron on foot will also give you 100 iron. So it's totally blown out of proportion. I scanned for minerals with Nomad only on 1st planet and then realized it will be enough to just pick deposits I see when walking around to swim in crafting materials.

Most of the time there is only 1 way to solve mission. And it involves guns. BioWare also get rid of paragon / renegade scale. They said it will give more flexibility to the players, as they will be able to pick any option they want! They lied. Conversations system is copied from DA:I. So we can pick from emotional, logical, casual, professional response. But often there are only 2 possibilities - like casual and professional. And NPCs don't really care what we will say, they will continue with their dialogue without change in tone or reacting how we responded. Fact that paragon / renegade system is gone means we can't persuade / threaten others to act as we want. Which is lame. There are few action prompts in whole game (which in theory should fill gap left by morality system), but they are so rare and pointless it feels it'd better if they wouldn't exist in the first place. In original trilogy you could use morality system to "win something" in pretty much every mission. Or just shoot those gas-filled barrels to kill some mercs before engaging in main combat. And here? You have choice of "kill someone who's running away or not". And this someone has no real impact on rest of the game. Lame lame lame.