There won't be much funny in this post sadly... Mass Effect 2 is probably my biggest gaming disappointment ever.

9

The Good

-Production values: The game has a solid audio/video experience and great alien art to boot.

-Performance: It runs at a solid clip on consoles, and my PC had no problems cranking out the max settings with some extra tweaks (high quality models all the time) at 45 FPS.

 -Good post-release support: Patches to improve stability, mini-games, Cerberus Network, and decent DLC are always a nice touch

-Final mission gave you a feeling of actually commanding with consequence

The Bad

-Stripped out the loot system and exploration: IMO these were the best things about the first game. Sure the loot management was crap, but the fact that there was loot and it was customizable was awesome. I was living out my sci-fi dreams while driving around on alien planets! They even took out the Citadel... Sure, no planets to explore... but not even the Citadel?

-The entire game is a side story arc that really goes nowhere. The climax (boss fight and mission of the Collectors) was complete turd on a stick. It was like the end of The Matrix: Path of Neo, except that game did it as a joke and acknowledged it as such. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzpzX2s7T8

-The actions taken in the first game had little to no impact on this game. Things are mentioned or alluded to here or there, or a character model and voice are swapped... but that's it. They might come into play on the next game but it would've been nice to have at least one major decision come into play sooner.

The Ugly 

-I bought the Collectors Edition of this game on PC and was determined to not open it before finishing the final exams I was writing at the time. I ended up playing it through twice in the two weeks I was writing finals. Needless to say, that was my worst term mark-wise ever.

-The tears of disappointment I shed when I realized the game was not what I wanted at all. It has earned much of this high score out of sheer quality, rather than being fun. I think my affection for the first game also bleeds into this to get it to a 9. Otherwise I think it would be low 8 territory.

-Miranda's face

You know what? Screw it... 6. I give this title a 6. Good looks can only take you so far. Miranda's assets can attest to that.

Ah yes, the characters. I'll add that. Thanks for the heads up! ... The fact that I forgot to mention them should give you my opinion of them

I think my view of ME2 has been tainted and warped because I hold ME1 in such high regard (it's my favourite game this gen!). Was I hyped for ME2? Yep... Is it partially my fault it didn't live up to my hype? Possibly. Really all I was expecting from ME2 was ME1 with some refinements (loot system revamp, more technically stable) and a strong narrative that advanced the main story arc. I got one out of those major 3 things (the least important of the 3 at that), and had the other two removed just about completely.

As for the characters, say what you will about the elevator rides in ME1, but the friendly banter between squadmates really helped flesh them out and make them more genuine.

I think you should implement a new rule, that states that every score above, say... 9.5 should also be accompanied by an in-depth reasoning for the score. This thread has been relatively spared from it thus far, but there have been tons of people in previous threads that gave the game a perfect score, said something along the lines of "tihs gaem is awesoem", and called it a day. And that shouldn't be allowed, in my opinion.

But it's your call. 

Lol do you play RPGs at all?

Though I find a 8/10 generous from someone as biased against anything non-ps3 exclusive as you. 

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/games/29199/aldro/

No, I don't play RPGs :). Doesn't stop me from giving my opinion.

As for user score, I give 10 for the games I like. 0 for the games I do not like :') sue me! :D

Also, I have it on my PC (downloaded it, sue me again :D <3).

That's pretty much what I thought.

I'll sue you in Sweden ... for rape ... like Julian Assange.

Finally!

Ummmm. On a personal scale it's probably a 9.1-9.2, but I'm going to score it 9.5 for the purposes of this thread. It's a fantastic game, easily my GotY last year.