The game is saddled with heartless, incessant, and tediously flow-breaking loading screens. Some are disguised as elevators. The game is just a jerk when it comes to squandering slices of time.
[...]
Combat is mostly satisfying, but marred by the enthusiastic retardation of your teammates. They constantly stand in front of you during combat, forcing you to move. Or they’ll take all the cover and leave you to stand in the open like a target dummy. Or, if you do find a good bit of cover and they don’t, they will stand right beside you, in the open, and “catch” incoming rockets so you can enjoy the blast radius.
[...]
Given the copious and diverse loading screens, I thought I would return the favor and cover this issue twice. Noveria was particularly cruel when it came to elevators, sometimes requiring two or three elevator rides between each step. The initial section in Port Hanshan is a four-stop quest that requires seven elevator rides.
[...]
The sections of the game where you drive the “Mako” - the all-terrain space-buggy - are by far the worst.
[...]
The central problem with the game is the amount of time you must spend just getting to the gameplay. For every five minutes you spend in combat or in dialog, you’ll spend twice that walking, driving, loading, riding elevators, watching unskippable animations, and fussing around with the inventory. You spend more time getting to the fun than having fun.​