Better than most games, but not close to ME2
Good:
1. Combat is still amazingly fun....its probably more fun than #2 as you gain more biotic abilities.
2. Storyline is solid...you could watch it as a movie (which you do quite a lot of in this game).
3. They removed the junk planet scanning for resources.
...unfortunately, that's it for the good,,,
Bad:
1. They replaced the junk planet scanning for hours with much less annoying brief scanning of world's for hidden 'treasures. This adds very little to the game and may actually take away from the experience for most (it did for me) as it makes little sense...its as if the creators didn't want to give up on scanning altogether,
2. Load times are still the longest of any game I have played....but I noticed them more than in 2 as I wasn't as engaged in the game.
3. Again the story isn't overly long, but this time instead of the great sidequests to find companions as in 2, its replaced by mundane idiotic quests to, mainly, pick up artifacts by scanning worlds as per 1 above.
4. To boot all these quests are picked up on 1 runthrough of the Citadel...the ONLY city you can travel too...that has shops...etc. Its the only place that's non-linear in the game...ridiculous.
5. The best part of ME2 for me was the amazing cast of characters. ME3 is a SERIOUS dissappointment in this category...sure, there are brief encounters with old friends, but no real interaction. The GREAT interaction options, including romance, in ME2 is almost completely missing in this one....they're much more like NPC's in any middling game anywhere.
The creators here missed the mark bigtime....sticking with the basics from ME2 and just changing the storyline would have made this series unforgettable.
3.