You should play 1 and 2.

Without 1 and 2, it'll be a highly enjoyable and fast-paced third person action game which doesn't make very much sense.

Play the entire series and it becomes an epic adventure and story in which everything is interlinked.

So, from best to worst:

1) Playing ME3 after playing ME1 and ME2

2) Playing ME3 without playing ME1 and/or ME2

3) Not playing ME3

Mass Effect 1, you can maybe possibly miss if you hate fun, but there is no excuse at all for not playing ME2.

Can't play 1 as I don't have a 360 and I read 2 has some introductory mission/dlc that allows you to answer some pivitol questions as well as fill you in on the story as prep for the game.

Its only $20 or less on Ebay, so maybe I should add it to my list of games to get after I play AC:Revelations.

yes there is this where can decide a few things, but this is nothing cause you won´t know any of the stuff thy´re asking about. Like who Ambassador Udina or what happend on Virmire. If you considering to play ME3 you definetly should play it´s successors the first is OK but the second part is the best RPG I played so far trust me on that dude. you can buy both game for 10 bucks each at gamestop or Amazon

Played some more multiplayer, level 16 vanguard now - using Katana shotgun with a Phalanx heavy pistol - beast combo, and the cool down time I adapted to.

Got to wave 10 on silver then perished, just me, friend and two randomers. Gold we lasted half a wave hur hur.

Managed to plough through Bronze, just me and my brother - him a level 8 Vanguard, me a level 11 Infiltrator. Good combo.

It's interesting how they've changed up Sentinel, which is to say it's interesting how they've changed up Tech Armor.

Tech Armor, at this point, serves two functions: it slows down your power use and it reduces the damage you take. This doesn't act as an additional layer on top of your existing armor, it just (with the right investments) cuts 40% of the damage you take, period, and it seems to apply to both your shields and your health. It can still explode, but the maximum range looks to be about 5 meters and you have to activate that yourself instead of it happening automatically.

Now since Sentinels have 50% more shields than eveyrone else and you can boost your health and shields by a lot, Sentinels can still be very serious tanks, and they have serious utility in combining Warp and Overload on the same moveset (invaluable when fighting Phantom or Engineers or Atlases). But they don't have the "pretty much impossible to kill" thing that Sentinels had going in ME2.

Sentinels, in spite of being thoroughly excellent, have actually gotten nerfed a little bit. They're still tough, easily the toughest class outside of a Vanguard with really low Charge cooldown, and they're more diverse than anyone else, but it really serves to highlight how they're jacks of all trades, now.

It's pretty interesting, seeing how they work. I like my Turian Sentinel is the point.

Why don't you stop nit picking the demo and wait for the game to come out.

Who are you even talking to, here?

I didn't really like it and I didn't really expect a shooter. Great visuals aside from the framerate. If i get it, it'll definitely be on PC.