Mass Effect 2 may well be one of the best games I've played in recent years. Great, streamlined action and a great cast of characters (apart from Jack, hated her guts). The overacrhing storyline is less important and is, as most of these overlong sci-fi and fantasy stories, a bit rubbish, but the character side stories made for an episodic structure reminiscent of a decent TV series, which worked well for me. It meant I did not get bored having to follow the same, convoluted plotline all the time, and the character stories were certainly a bit more involving than your usual RPG side quest.

Now I should mention that I never played the original Mass Effect for more than an hour, and I generally have not really liked any of their previous games, apart from the time I spent long ago in an NWN persistent world online and the first time I played KOTOR was also fun, but it seemed pretty bad when revisting it later. I don't know if Mass Effect 2 will hold up well enough to warrant a replay for me, but I enjoyed my first playthrough (this year) more than any other Bioware game I've played.

To be honest, one of my pet peeves with Bioware games are their strange emphasis on romance within the game, though I guess that's due to the demand of the fanbase. I recall that I somehow started the romance with one of my party members in Jade Empire and somehow reach its conclusion without me ever putting him in my party and with no real intentions of actually getting a romance with anybody. I can't even recall his name since I barely talked to him through the course of the gameplay. Bioware seems to be trying to throw the romance in the new games.

In Dragon Age II, you can't even stop a romance without acting quite rude to a party member, and these members seem to mention their attraction to you earlier than other games. I hope that Mass Effect 3 will not go on the same route, especially when Shepard has an invasion to fight. Judging from the fact that there is an Mass Effect 3 Character and Romance Discussion board on the official forums, I don't think I should be optimistic about the way Bioware handles romance.