Anyone else playing on Insanity? Also if you are what is your experience with the main story planet in the middle of the game in-between character recruitment? Final stretch of that was INSANE for me. Lol.

I'm playing Insanity on my second time right now and it's about vet level first play at early stages at about 26+ and weapons so far(29 atm before I went to sleep,) things don't really get you that bad when you have geth shield (I went for 75% and 10% dmg of course,) and cloak since I'm an Infiltrator with the sniper from the collector ship and maxed out cryo ammo >=D.

Yeah i got it in the end. Had to wait until the illusive man decided to give it to me.

After naza's review and reading this thread, getting this game asap!

Finished the game at about 26 hours and change, didn't do more than 2 side missions, but I did all the loyalty missions, her's what I think of the game.

The good:

Some of the best dialogue you'll find in any game.

Great side characters and good character development through the adventure.

Much improved combat and space navigation over the first game.

Good music (like the first ME) and the voice acting is almost universally good.

Liked the higher number of crew members over the first game and I enjoyed the loyalty missions that gave depth to the characters.

Side missions and loyalty missions are way better than what you could do outside of the main story in the first game.

Good build up at the end, I liked how different characters' lives were in danger at different times and it created tension.

Less glitches and a better frame rate than the first game.

The bad:

Still not as good a 3rd person shooter as Gears of War or Uncharted 2 (which is a minor complaint in a game this big).

Wanted additional new alien races to be introduced.

Still a relatively empty galaxy, even though it is much better handled than the first.

Weak final boss compared to the rest of the last area.

The ending theme is nowhere near as good as the one from the frist Mass Effect.

The Ugly:

The only major complaint I have is the amount and length of loading times, people complained about the slow elevators in the first game, but at least the other two members used to talk to each other while you were on them and watching 3 people go down on an elevator is better than a load screen.

The human characters were a lot better than Alenko and Ashley from the first game and almost all the characters were great (Grunt was a lesser  Wrex and Legion was unnecessary). At the end, I didn't let Cerberus keep the ship and I went all the way with Tali (thinking that I'd see what the Quarians look like under the suit, at least their faces, but was disappointed by that not happening).

One more thing, this is the only game that I probably spent as much time talking to people as I did fighting or killing them.

Ameratsu: "I guess collecting Turian emblems and recovering stuff from broken satellites over and over again is your idea of a good time, huh?"

Don't misunderstand me. ME2 is the better game overall but the seven short, linear quest planets I have managed to find do not replace the ability of the player to decide which planet s/he wants to explore and when. Some of the side quests were quite interesting in ME1 and at least you gained experience by grinding it out.

Collecting minerals in ME2 is only worth doing for the upgrades. Is moving a reticle in a search pattern of your own choosing better than the Mako? I enoyed fighting Maws, Colossi, turrets etc. You didn't, fine. I'm not sure why you are angry as your viewpoint prevailed. Would the majority have wished away vehicle combat and exploration? I doubt it. Was it necessary to deliver the game as is? Probably.

Another example of bioware's move to a more linear style was the unavoidable quest for the Reaper IFF. (SPOILER) There's an email and you're off! I'll be sure to hit level 15 before they force me into the same trap, again. A surprising trend from an rpg dev. known for at least the illusion of choice. I've gotta go play some Renegade now so enjoy.

should have gotten the PC version, pretty much no load times(few secs tops on a decent machine,) I've seen the 360 load time though and yeah I agree it's fucking hell.

another reason why ME2 is better than ME1 =D

WHAT YOU MEAN I CAN PUNCH SHIT!?!?!?!?

I am still pissed that they are re-using character models. Bioware is lazy lazy lazysauce!

I forgive them big time for the area layouts though from the first game, they did way better in this one.

I am really enjoying it, but the story is driving me on so much I am not exploring everywhere. I am going to have to do loads of scanning to make sure the crew is ready for the suicide mission, they are all going to survive! {Hopefully..... well Thane better!}

The loyalty missions add another dimension to it, though I would appreciate more missions which weren't simply to recruit new members or to make them loyal