The first thing you notice about Mass Effect: Andromeda is how awful the characters look, There's no emotion at all. Every character has the same facial expression regardless of what they are saying or how they are saying it. I think that for me is a big killer because it ruins any sense of realism. Even after all the patches they put out, The characters have such a shallow and unattached look. It makes them hard to like and hard to get into the story.
And speaking of the characters, I am disappointed greatly. Mass Effect has such a rich history of amazing characters with very developed back stories. Andromeda had none of that. Everyone has their run of the mill generic story line that isn't even vaguely interesting. Sure, Some of the characters don't make for bad companions but a majority aren't even worth using let alone doing side missions for. And as for the plot of the main game, It's garbage. You wake up after 600 years of sleep in a new galaxy dealing with a new alien threat who is just as disappointing as the story itself.
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum is the environments. The environments look amazing. Even though there's a lot less to explore than previous games, The environments have more variety and don't come off as stale or repetitive because of it. I really think outside of the poorly done characters, This is a stunning looking game.
As for the game play, It's a lot of the same old same old. I find the gun play to be rather fun, The melee combat is just terrible and a feature I pretty much never use. I am disappointed they removed the power wheel for biotic powers because it made using them so much easier. Now you have to take the time to open the menu and pick a new power, It's a hassle. Also, There's no need to upgrade weapons/armours. Sure there are mods and stuff but I've played through so much of the game without even upgrading skill points let alone weapons and armour. They make it too difficult to find and buy new stuff, It's an awful aspect of the game play. They should have stuck with what they did with ME 1 and 2: Weapon/Armor vendors, Occasional drops from enemies that are automatically picked up instead of having to manually do so for every enemy. So many flaws that just take away from the game when if they had kept it the same, It'd have been awesome. Vehicle controls I noticed are better but what's the point in having normal drive and all-wheel drive? It's the future...We are in space...we really can't just have it all be one thing? Seems like a needless addition.
Other things I noticed were the numerous bugs even after patching: Certain voice overs wouldn't play, Mission icons wouldn't pop up and the game would lag like crazy during load screens. Weapon modding is needlessly complicated and so is buying weapons; To prove how pointless it is, I changed my weapons once the entire game and that was because I suddenly realized I could change them. The multiplayer is broken, It lags like crazy and it's very difficult to find a match let alone play a complete one. Strike teams are such a pointless addition as well and only give you cheap rewards for the campaign, Mostly modding materials but we already covered how useless that is.
Overall: 4/10
The needless multiplayer addition cost them IMO. They couldn't put their entire focus on making a good single player experience and that's what I think cost them in the long haul. There are so many bugs, The multiplayer is all but broken and the story sucks.