I am NOT going to just stand by here and have you SCREAM over and over how Mass Effect 2 is not an RPG, which then would cause a game like Borderlands to be LESS than not an RPG, because the creators of Borderlands look to create a fusion of RPG and FPS.  And yes, Borderlands fits that.  And if it does, then Mass Effect 2 is even more so an RPG.

First, outside of Tetris, about EVERY videogame is an RPG of sorts.  You PLAY A ROLE that is not you.  In Mass Effect 2, you played Commander Shepard, and it is your job to save the galaxy.  You also leveled up and gained proficiency in weapons.  The game was gun focused.  And you did other things also in the game besides shooting.

And there are character classes, three basic versions, and six overall that mixed the two.  And they impact things differently. 

Your hatred of Mass Effect 2 is blinding you to the reality it IS an RPG.  You may ended up hating it, and saying it stinks, which is fine.  You may also say it falled to deliver a real RPG experience, while succeeding in other areas.  This is fine.  But to say it isn't something, when it is, is flat out wrong.  It is an RPG.

I second that, Mass Effect 2 is most definitely an RPG.  Is it your old-school-turn-based-go-to-the-item-shop-and-buy-stupid-health-potions RPG?  No, it's not.  If you can't even properly appreciate what genre a game is in then you really should question yourself as a gamer. 

What people who play a LOT of traditional non-pen and paper RPG electronic form end up getting duped into believing is a certain pattern is what an RPG is.  Then, when they seen variations on the form, and the addition of a decent FPS/third-person shooter engine to support it, so the combat is seemless, is that they will think that it isn't an RPG because their FOO isn't what they found.  What the electronic versions did was end up doing what the computer was good at, but were really weaker in other areas.  Mass Effect 2 doesn't have you move your party members around like they are pawns.  In it, you are one person and your party acted on their own.  You didn't treat them like pawns.  That is one abomination to the RPG genre that computers added.  It SIMULATED what a pen and paper RPG was like, but you didn't actually really role-play.  When you command a party, you are NOT roleplaying.  You are playing a simulation of a role playing game.

Then take the rest of the stuff there, and the other complains for what they are.  However, I think it is important be fair.  When a game like Modern Warfare takes leveling up from RPGs, the lines do start to get blurred here.  Modern Warfare isn't an RPG, but it has RPG-like elements being borrowed for it.  The key is the intention of the designers I believe, and if they are in the ballpark.  Like, also it is good to ask what Diablo and Nethack are.

Not truth.  Opinions.  I could counter each and every one of the things I listed with facts.  But it doesn't matter when you have haters from so many different angles bad mouthing a game every chance they get.

And, for the record, I DEFINITELY appreciate and value valid criticism.  When constructive, it can help improve a game through patches or subsequent installments.  BUT ... what I will never support are those that LOOK for things to criticize, magnify them and then condemn a game because of them.  That's just trolling and benefits NO ONE.

Sorry.  I was referring to those that don't present themselves as console fanboys (few publicly do) but take every available opportunity to bad mouth a game because it is not on or exclusive to their platform.  We see it already with GeoW3 and Resistance 3 and neither are even out yet.  *sigh*

When you have a lot of consistent, negative talk about something, it's impossible for it to not affect you in some way. That can hurt sales. That was my point.

lifetime it will sell 3.25 million on xbox a million on ps3 and  .75 million pc. i dont know about you but i think 5 million is very good.

Mass Effect 2 came out in January so what you got to say to that? 

By that standard the RPG genre should not exist since every game is an RPG.

So an RPG is a game where "playing a role" is central to the game mechanics: Mass Effect 2 is a game where shooting is central to the game mechanics, hence it is not an RPG. Not by any means.

You can be a complete douche when talking to the other characters and the only consequences are a somewhat different development of the story. Not even a different story. You can lose only when shooting, hence it's a shooter. Play Gothic and try to trash-talk some NPG, try out Planescape Torment or Arcanum or, even better, try to play a dating-sym (!!!) while trash-talking everyone. You'll find much more role playing in an average denigrated JRPG or JSRPG than in ME2.

My impression is that this game was labelled as an RPG just for commercial purposes.

No one is screaming. I like how you assume I hate Mass effect 2 as well, quite amusing.

Playing a role of a person does not equal RPG.

There's a clear difference. Making your OWN role in the same game is what an RPG is. No other game has been called an RPG when there is not much elements of RPG to it. You play as commander shephard, so its an RPG now? So Uncharted is an RPG because I can play the role of Nathan Drake?

Nope.

Weapon development is very limited in Mass effect 2. Even more limited than Dead Space. Armor development is also more limited than Dead Space. You gain illusionary points after completing levels so everyone who plays the game gets equal no. of points at the end of the day, so everyone is playing the same role in this game. The 4-5 stuff that you can upgrade is also very limited, and Call of duty, dead space all have a lot more upgrading available.

There is nothing called as a "traditional" rpg and some different kind of RPG. RPGs basically mean everyone plays their own role, in short a lot of options available so out of 100 people all of their skills, weapons, armors, level etc vary even though they have completed the game. In case of Mass effect 2, that never happens.

Heck if it was at least as upgradable and customizable as Dead Space maybe it would have been possible to call it an RPG, but its not.

There is another example of a game that has RPG elements, that has better RPG elements than Mass Effect 2 but doesn't call itself as "RPG": Infamous. This genius game has two endings, several powers that you can get unlocked over time but you can choose whether or not you want to upgrade them, you get XP points for killing enemies, completing missions and using stunts. Using these xps you can upgrade your powers. There's also negative karma powers and positive karma powers, both are different so the way you play the game actually has an impact on your strengths. You can collect blast shards throughout the city to improve your "ammo" count.

Even that game is not an RPG but a sandbox super hero game. What classifies Mass effect 2 as an RPG then? Just because its predecessor was an RPG? The small tiny-tweeny RPG elements in Mass effect 2 can't make it an RPG, it has to be a full-fledged one.

Considering the sales of RPGs, compared to FPS, why would ANY company label something an RPG when FPS would be better suited for it?

In a videogame, in order to play a role, you have to do SOMETHING.  When it comes to traditionally on a videogame or computer game, where you usually get experience, is IN COMBAT, and that is normally where you die.  It happens to be that Mass Effect, uses guns and biotics as the main means of combat, so shooting is primarily means of fighting.  And what is the difference between range and melee attacks anyhow?  If Mass Effect 2 had more melee style play, would that make a difference? Diablo is considered an RPG also, and guess what, you end up dying in combat only.  Since when is the magic criterion for how you die the basis for whether or not something is an RPG?  Nethack is similar also.  It is a dungeon crawl, with leveling up stats, where you bear certain attributes that are improved through doing certain actions.  The goal is to improve your character.

And just because something has MORE of something, doesn't mean something that has less of it isn't in the same category.

Wikipedia on RPGs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game

Thing that is happening today is that the RPG genre is getting canibalized by other genres out there, so that the genre known as RPGs is being blurred.  Similar happened with adventure games.  Now the elements of the adventure genre have been assimilated by everything else.  This happened in Half-Life as one of the starting points.  The original Half-Life had feelings of an adventure game to it.  Now, leveling up has been absorbed by about every game genre out there.  And you have Bioware attempting to make things more accesible, so they bring a stronger shooter element into Mass Effect universe, in Mass Effect 2.