Spoiler File
(3.6MB, 2100x1260) Reverse Finished the Shore Leave questline for Mass Effect 3, finally ready to get my Golden Saucer on and make my real point of no return save. Before this I cured the genophage (krogan > gay frogs) and killed the quarians (cool robots > gypsy bionicle goat jews, plus Tali was already dead so I don't have the guilt of pissing her off) and got most of the war assets so I'll be able to get the "best" (Flamin' Hot with high EMS) ending after cheating myself some multiplayer wins.
Gameplay is still pretty competent for a 7th-gen cover shooter, but a bit of a mixed bag compared to ME2. Enemies vary from wet toilet paper (husks and cannibals, Cerberus mooks) to "a bit nasty but doable" (guardians, Atlas mechs, banshees, Marauder Shields and his 10000 brothers) to blatantly unbalanced (ravagers, Cerberus turrets which appear in the first story mission and can pop your shields in 2 seconds) and knowing how to spam powers for max effectiveness is still important. Weapon damage is terribly low for the first half unless you're using the DLC guns, probably to give some semblance of ammo pressure. If you're using the DLC guns it's about on par with Mass Effect 2. Also they nerfed the crap out of Shockwave and I'm still a little butthurt about it, even if "Biotic Charge and then punch them until they die" is still a valid tactic.
Exploration-wise, the war assets system is effectively a big pile of fetch quests but the overall effect is a lot less grating than it was in the first game. This is because instead of grinding your face off in a featureless soup of interchangeable UE heightmap levels, you just run around the Citadel eavesdropping on people.
>"oh woe is me, the Reapers will kick our asses unless someone can recover the Buttplugs of Smiting we were forced to leave in the Bumblefart system"
<go to the Bumblefart system
<mash L2 around a few choice planets
<pick up the Buttplugs of Smiting with the mineral scan system from ME2 but not garbage
<run from the Reapers like you're an Alabama nigger
<go back to the Citadel
<"I'm Commander Shepard, and these are my favorite Buttplugs of Smiting on the Citadel"
It sounds worse than it is because in practice you end up making big loops around the galaxy map completing a half-dozen of these fetch quests at once in between story missions. It gives you an excuse to experience more of the ambient dialogue and side content you wouldn't have touched otherwise.
The writing is... okay. Definitely less bad than I thought it was going to be. Unlike in the rest of the series the Hard Choices you have to make (cure the genophage/let the krogan think you cured it at the cost of breaking poor Mordin's heart, kill the geth for being synthetics with a history of running to the Reapers because reasons/kill the quarians for bringing everything bad that has ever happened to them upon themselves when the geth just wanted to be their robros) have valid arguments on either side and negative consequences for each, but at least in the case of the genophage the writers still had a definite opinion on what was the right choice. Ambient dialogue on the Citadel and in priority missions still rocks, but making it loop infinitely is annoying as shit.
For character writing, I am officially convinced: BioWare dropped the ball for female Shepards and journos were right to bitch for once because every romanceable male NPC in the series is a boring slab of meat compared to Tali, Liara, Ashley and even Jack. I never had any interest in a female Shepard playthrough and I'm still offended by proxy. Fuck, even the nigger in ME2 had a kind of interesting loyalty mission. I thought they were supposed to be good at this.
Other characters are either on par with ME2 or actually improved; Garrus in particular has a lot of great character moments stemming from the reaming the turians get early on, and seeing Jack graduate from dyke bitch to bitch-with-a-heart-of-gold was awesome considering I hated her and barely used her in ME2. Most ME2 characters get their character arcs resolved in a satisfying way, except Kasumi because she was always a shoehorned bitch. The Wakandan Prothean was a bit of a disappointment; most of his dialogue is funny and I ended up bringing him for most missions where I didn't bring Liara, but making the Protheans space nazis was probably the laziest thing they could have done; keeping the enlightened-precursor-race bit while layering on a "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few planets" mentality with Javik would have been far more interesting.
Pic unrelated, but I'm out of real Mass Effect images and this kind of reminded me of the series so now you must suffer as I have.