ME 1 was an attempt from Bioware into making a sci fi RPG/shooter, it had major flaws, the main antagonist was an overdramatic cunt, the shooting mechanics were loose, the squad mate Ai was atrocious, the Mako sections a complete waste of time, the planets you could "explore" a complete waste of time and the story devolved into retarded unoriginal crap "We are a race of evil Space Machine Cuthullus, bow before us!" Most locations with exception of the Citadel are uninteresting, like generic base on ice planet, like generic base on jungle planet, like planet full of generic ruins...
However, there were some moments or brillance, the art style was well done, the idea of humans being the new kids on the block and tension building up because of their rise, the hints of inter species backstabbing, the whole genophage idea of the Salarians using genetic engineering on the Kroogans, there were moments like your interaction with the Rachini queen and the exploration of Citadel station that were well done.
When I started playing Mass Effect 1 I tought Saren was some badass Turian ultra nationalist that wanted to fuck the humans really good what would make him a truly great villain with understandable motivations but of course the epic childish "We are a race of evil Space Machine Cuthullus, bow before us!" plot made him a retard tool. I like Mass Effect 1 more like a potential for a good series than as a game.
ME 2 was a major change in direction from ME 1 for good or worse. The major problems of Mass Effect 2 is that some key writers that made Mass Effect 1 left Bioware, so that interesting theme of humans being the new kids on the block with rising tensions was mostly gone, Citadel inter species politics was mostly left abandoned and all the interesting major universe story arcs were abandoned. It is like the new writers completely drop off the direction Mass Effect 1 was going and got on with their own stuff.
They decided to focus mostly on that childish space Cuthulu plot as the main plot but as there was yet another game to be made on the trilogy, they came with an generic evil race to be the filler bad guys while the real bad guys didn't show up yet. The major plotline for Mass Effect 2 is just awful through and through.
It was a major lost on potential and a change of direction that would only make the major plot of the series even worse by Mass Effect 3. However, not everything was bad, Mass Effect 1 had so so characters but Mass Effect 2 introduced alot of characters, some with even truly well done characterizations, they expanded the universe as well with much more interesting locations to visit than Mass Effect 1 and people can shit all they want on Bioware but they made their best characters really well integrated with their enviroment and believable motivations, Mordin and Garrus especially on Omega were great examples that Bioware could stop shitting the bed and do good writing if they tried hard at it.
In terms of gameplay, the shooting was far more enjoyable, some people hate the changes they did but the shooting on ME 1 was just way too clunky and we aren't talking of Deus Ex here where shooting was optional and having loose shooting mechanics made sense, the only thing you could do on Mass Effect is to shoot dudes on the face on corridors, it was way less on the RPG side than Deus Ex was and shooting dudes on the face with those clunky mechanics for hours was tiresome to the extreme.
Mass Effect 3 is where the awful major plotlines moments of Mass Effect 1 and 2 came together and created an atomic explosion of crap that doesn't make any sense, what is a pity because the shooting is the best in the series and is genuinely fun for the first time and there are some really well made moments with some characters especially on Tuchanka.
It is funny, to me, playing the Mass Effect series is like to be that hobo rummaging through a dumpster and having to push out all the trash to find the edible bits. The worse part being the romances, I think romances should be banned from games because they always are made by people still stuck on the teenager years for mentally retarded people still stuck on the teenage years. They do real damage to the characters too, especially when you believe on this SJW crap, you turn every single character a bisexual to pander disgusting subhuman retards that think this isn't absolute retardation. This is even worse on a sci fi game with alien species because you end up anthropomorphising them to the point of ridiculous as evident on that pink alien romance, it becomes comedic stuff, you could replace that pink alien with a talking horse and the result would be the same.
Mass Effect Prospermeda looks like some game made by some complacent yes men that EA placed on Bioware. They just gone with some stuff they tought was Mass Effect iconic and made a big checkbox list, "MAJESTIC MYSTERIOUS advanced lost alien civilization.", check, "Romance with ridiculous comical anthropomorphic aliens." , check, but this time with open world gameplay as EA wants an Assassins Creed of its own for years. You can notice no one, nowhere even stop a second to reflect and form a coherent vision of anything.
The EA machine can't think, it can only assimilate and regurgitate things. I really hope they rebrand Bioware to EA Edmond and stop the farce Bioware still exist.