This is why I cannot believe this 'Universe' one bit: they didn't even try to make a real Universe. Mediocre.
ME2 has some uninspired and dull graphics. It's not particularly a bad thing but when it comes to the alien landscapes and cities I'd like to see something jaw-dropping and rioting instead of the same metallic boxes or trees over and over again. It's definitely made for consoles so you won't see any improvements in graphics over any console game out there.
Let's now try to sum up some notable features the game has:
* A huge Universe to explore. This is an overstatement of the year. This huge Universe consists of only about 20-30 real places others are being just a filler "planets" impossible to land. All the landscapes are the same. One would expect the Universe to be a diverse place with some strange and unknown places to visit, different colors, different plants, different atmosphere, different gravity. How can you expect for example most planets to have the same trees as we see here on Earth now? Even 100 million years ago our vegetation was completely different. It seems that ME2 universe is made by one person and all the planets are the 21-th century Earths with the same grass and the trees and almost completely deprived of any animal species. This is even funnier to see almost every planet to have some kind of organic life on it. We have at least 9 planets within the Solar system of which only one has organic life so it's ridiculous to think that most planets in the Universe have it. Yes, I understand that making completely different planets is difficult and time-consuming but the devs didn't even try.
All the cities are alike and have the same architecture. The same rooms the same tables, the same wall news kiosks no diversity at all. All aliens and humans alike understandably listen to our 21-st century music in clubs (no surprise here, though, it's not a small feat to imagine alien music).
I also cannot understand how the planets can be larger than the stars (don't tell me now they are shown on some kinds of charts or maps as they are animated and interactive). I cannot believe I see the huge planets reel around the stars so close they should've not existed at all. I cannot believe I can find resourceful and even colonizable planets in the systems with blue giant stars. I cannot believe they've drawn all the planets so equally boring (it looks just like a texture on a sphere) and the only planet looks like a real one is Earth.
* ME2 Universe is dominated by humanity. It seems like all other species are relatively new to the space flights and don't have a say in anything what's going on (and not the other way around as the game tries to introduce to us). Most places are crawling with humans, human mass media is dominant, humans are the only security on the Citadel, human corporations are the only ones to have extensive ads all over the place and it looks like all the species use only human goods and weaponry. Since the humanity crawled out of its cradle into space English has become the only language spoken by everyone (sometimes with funny accent meant to tell us that this particular alien is from a distant place only recently switched to English). SI units are also widely accepted among all aliens. They are using meters, Celsius and even earth-based days or years (at least the devs have some balls to use meters and Celsius instead of feet and Fahrenheit). It seems that the most known planets are now colonized by the humans. There are so many human colonies in space I can't help but think of the new kind aphrodisiac they should've invented in the future to match the human birth rate with that of rabbits. No alien colonies are ever mentioned so my guess is this aphrodisiac can only be used by the humans.
* All the alien species have the same human form of body the same amount of 'hands' and 'legs', one head, two eyes, a mouth and almost human-like faces overall. Is this any believable?
* All the computers in the Universe have the same interface and you can access it by using some weird thing attached to your left hand.
* Outrageous and hideous minigames (mark my words, next time they'll implement QTEs) are a huge letdown for me. Am I supposed to immerse into the Universe or try to match these ridiculously annoying random patterns? What are they for? They don't belong here at all. And the most outrageous addition is a grind for resources. I have a thing for completeness so they made me grind through every planet out there to get all the resources available and I've spend at least half the time in this game watching those probes flying away. Boy, I was a fool doing this I've never spent 5% of the amount I've grinded (almost 1.5 mil of each plus ~200.000 ezo). What's up with these probes anyway? Are they some kind of Wall-Es hollow inside using some drilling tech to fill them up with resources and come back later? It's so stupid really. In the first ME it was at least some believable. How come I cannot get my AI to scan those planets and extract everything automatically? I'm supposed to grind it, I see…
* Combat system feels cluttered and awkward. You'll find yourself using 1-2 kinds of weapon at most throughout the game. There are few spells but you can use only one spell at a time making all others unavailable during a cooldown time. This is not right. You'll end up using only one spell (if any) through and through. Why did they bother to implement these spells at all? The only RPG-like thing you're doing is buying the upgrades from various stores or your own ship using credits or resources.
* The story is simple and predictable. Expect no thrills and twists. But this wouldn't be a problem if the Universe was alive. I won't spend much time talking about HARD moral or immoral choices the main character will have to make; sometimes I had really a HARD time understanding what's so (im)moral or (in)ethical in some of the choices. Good thing it's just a game otherwise we'll be a strange race indeed. You'll get your fair share of cheesiness and stupidity along with some really bad voice acting (albeit only sometimes) but it's expected from Bioware, average script writing is their trademark.
Some additional random funny facts:
* It's so cold that the car's drive temperature drops in the matter of minutes. I guess the car is just naked and needs a good fur coat.
* An AI machine (game confirms they don't feel pleasure or pain) has a pleasure of playing games (Legion).
* A krogan embryo is speaking and making decisions as a fully grown person. Do you expect a developed personality from a 2 week-old child? He has been fed the memories and info but the personality cannot be grown in a test-tube.
* The center of the Galaxy is… some dark sphere with a noticeable corona surrounded by spaceship debris. I would have imagined a supermassive black hole a little different.
As a conclusion this is not the real space game. You can see stars and planets but they will not call up to you and send you dreaming of space. You can see big cities but you will still feel locked in a confined space of a corridor with a cheap pictures of skyscrapers on the walls. The Universe feels unreal, artificial and uninspired. But still it is a fun game to spend your time (thus the score) and it's quite playable in a way. Although, I wish they've hired some professional writer for the Universe or the story and a real physicist for a QA, because right now it's a work of children and NOT a quality science fiction game. Of course this is my personal opinion and you may disregard it anyway you see fit. :-)