A... weird ending, not as fleshed out squad interaction as was promised and some really weird decisions gameplay wise.
The game itself plays very similar to ME2. There's the ammo clips ("thermal" clips), the cover system, and the enemies we've all grown to know and love, plus some new ones thrown in, mainly guys from cerberus who have taken the place of the ubiquitous mercernary gangs in ME2, and some other creatures which are what are the results of reapers controlling the other races. There does seem to be an issue with targetting biotic attacks in this game, as a lot of them seem to miss with disturbing regularity, something which personally I didn't really notice in the last two games, and they also seem to hit for incredibly low amounts of damage, so much so I generally ended up using my tech and biotic skills mainly for crowd control, rather than damage, which seems to be rather poor form for a sentinel. The combat for the most part is rather easy, however there is a great tendency towards the end of the game to put your squad in tight situations with big enemies that hurt in melee and take a long time to put down, resulting in immense frustration in some fights near the end, kinda like the old dance around the box move with the praetorians in ME2. Not fun.
The storyline is much the same, with even the entire universe going to hell the rest of the races tend to stonewall and dick about with their own issues and grievances rather than band together, even while they're getting annihilated. Makes you wonder if the reapers have the right idea in the end. Of course, it's a great pretense to get you traipsing around the universe. And traipse you do, digging up stuff left right and centre throughout multiple star systems while dodging the reapers, which is actually incredibly easy to do, so much so that they're just a damn annoyance than a threat. The storyline for the most part does seem to be more you wrapping up and soothing over ancient enmities than anything else. The ending... well. The ending is based off your strength, which is based on numbers and "readiness". Readiness can only be improved via multiplayer matches, which in my eyes is an apalling design move. No single player game should force someone to play multiplayer to achieve the best endings. If I want to play multiplayer, I'll log onto rift, not hop into some silly lobby or whatever the hell they use, and some people who play multiplayer are not people you would ever willingly associate with. If I wanted to play a multiplayer shooter, there's team fortress 2. I want to just play ME3, thanks. As it stands, the ending is rather ambiguous, and kinda weak. It doesn't feel like closure, just a stop, and a tacked-on one. Though because of the lack of multiplayer, I haven't seen the "best" endings. That was a real bad move imo Bioware. The story is good and emotive, but the end, omg.
*spoiler*
To be honest though, I wanted to shoot that kid the first time it appeared in the first dream sequence. *end spoiler*
The graphics and sound are basically the same as ME2, and there is a bit of recycling that you can detect, with Sanctuary looking and laid out verrrrry similar to Noveria in ME1, Tuchanka ruins eerily similar to Feros with a bit of Ilos in ME1, etc etc. I think they learned from the shelacking they received over DA2 *shudder* though, as it is nowhere near as pronounced.
In short, this game is going to be more decisive than DA2, which from what I can gather the reception was mostly negative. I personally liked it until the end, which felt like a big letdown, though a lot felt railroaded, like the Geth and Quarians going at it (minor spoiler, but hey, who couldn't see it coming). The biotics and tech weakness did bug me though playing as a sentinel, especially with the massive penalty to recharge that tech armor incurs. The combat was mostly okay, except the cheap "box in with multiple heavy hitters" that was rolled out a few times at the end. The need to play multiplayer to achieve the best outcomes in single player is an extraordinarily bad move in my eyes, and I wouldn't be suprised if someone cooks up something that will remove that. There is still nowhere near as much squad interaction as I'd have liked, and to be honest I felt like the previous Mass Effect games did better, though it was nice to just see the squad hanging out, being more like friends. The ending is going to be very decisive, to me it felt anaemic. It is a great game, though it is not stratospheric great. At least it gives hope that Bioware is returning to form.