This game should've been a slam dunk. I love geeky episodic Trekish sci-fi. I never played the original ME games simply because I found the art style drab and monochromatic. When the first screenshots started leaking out for this game showing the ships, planet landscapes, spacesuits, weapons, etc.. I thought, okay, I might be all in for this one. I liked the colorful art design. It had a ST:TMP meets Space 1999 meets the Thunderbirds vibe (they got the Thunderbirds animation right). "This might be the one" I thought. Baby's first Mass Effect. It didn't need to be deep... It didn't need to be Planescape Torment in space. Just good, shallow, competently written, casual sci-fi fun.
Strike one: Dickbag racist developer trolling the customer base with his twitter account.
Strike two: Derpy faces on the female characters for the sake of sticking it to the "beautiful people" (which I would've laughed off if it weren't for...)
Strike three: Tumbler fanfic quality writing and dialogue.
Strike four: Phoned in VO acting.
Strike five: Incompetent animation.
I could've lived with the game and it's bugs and dopey faces if it simply weren't for strikes one and three. That's right, I've got a pretty high threshold for bullshit (years of playing Bethesda games will do that).
So, Bioware, you blew it. The last game of yours that I bought on release day was Jade Empire. I was the perfect mark for a sale and you fucked it up because of some shithead employee's big mouth and a staff of writers who didn't even try. This game could've been the one to make me even dip my toe into one of the earlier ME games, but we'll never know now, will we?
But thanks for the laughs all the same.