The patches fixed a lot of issues in the game so I'd say it's very playable, though I wish they'd still do something about the audio issues that still exist.
What the patches cannot fix is the feeling of an unfinished story that will not be completed, at least not in video game format. What it also doesn't fix is what I see as a weak premise of this game.
The pathfinder itself in combination with the set up of the Andromeda Initiative is what I mean with that. The AI is a corporation that goes exploring in what ends up being a hostile environment. This apparently was not expected so we're not armed properly and well whether we set up a science or military base on our first planet actually makes no difference either in the end. And well the intrigue behind the corporate organization is never resolved.
The pathfinder character is also just not a believable position in my view. Your character is enhanced with an AI against your will as it is and it's the AI that makes you powerful, not your character. That's the main difference I feel with Shepard. Shepard was driven and trying to save the galaxy for everyone and it was intense.
ME:A lacks this intensity in character and story. I was glad to have more interesting companions than in Dragon Age Inquisition, but I also feel that (and I hate to bring it up but there it is) the characters have been made uglier on purpose to appease certain voices in social media. For me it means that it all feels too normal and therefore mundane, uninspiring.
It also doesn't help the game was rushed in the end and that every Asari has the same face (aside from Peebee) and also the new race, the Angara have a lot of copy-paste going on to the point it's noticeable. And what the hell did they do to the turians? Their faces have been rekt.
And then the GUI. It's noticeable that Frostbite isn't made for RPG style games but it's actually worse than for example the GUI of Dragon Age Origins. I don't get why they couldn't do better, but going into the missions and crafting areas is a pain to navigate through.
Is it all bad then? Well, no. The game generally looks amazing (a few lighting issues aside) and the gameplay itself is pretty good and recovering the planets with ancient tech I find fun. Also the nomad vehicle is a big improvement over older vehicles. In fact I played the game through a few times and put over 200 hours into the game.
But when I recently wanted to play again I quickly found myself annoyed with how uninteresting the characters are and how bad character models look when you're on the Nexus even at 4k resolution (high settings) and SAMs voice acting also doesn't help.
I think the game has some core elements in it that are good but as far as stories and characters go I find Andromeda uninspiring and mundane. That's a bigger issue to me than the bugs.
So if you just want to go in a shoot stuff and not care too much about characters and story this game is solid, but if you really want to feel engaged like with the original ME series, I fear you'll be disappointed.
That's my view on it anyways.
Egomania, very well said. If I were to write something as complete as you did I'd have basically said it near-word for word. The score of dialogue choices that lead to the same outcome regardless, the wealth of weak writing spots that overshadows the rare glimpse of passable writing, the tragedy this game inflicts on the Asari faces, well, as you said there's a playable game that holds at least some fun for the player in there but it's still buried under all that is still unresolved.
With regard to SAM's voice, for me it's not the sound of his voice but his dialogue limitations. He drifts in and out of AI, often seeming like more of a VI at times. What I mean by this is when he's cutting in at times to advise you that you're wasting your time on the troublesome NPC you're currently talking to, that's definitely AI behavior at work. But when he's constantly repeating himself with drone-voice about mining zones, about temperature changes, etc, that is pure VI behavior, and it quickly becomes annoying as hell.
If SAM were a true AI then the player should have been given some kind of option to, through dialogue, tell him to shut up. "Yes SAM, I'm aware that it's cold out, no need to to keep constantly reminding me"
"Of course Pawthfinder"
Thankfully I found a mod that remedied this, but the point is I shouldn't have to.
I've got 600 hrs into this game, but I'm thinking I've pretty much come to the end of my time In Andromeda. Now that may sound like a lot but by comparison it is nothing to the 3000+ hours I spent on each of the first 3 games in the original ME trilogy. I tend to start multiple characters and try the game every which way using different builds and skill combinations, exploring as much of the dialogue options as I can. ME 1 had 27 different ways to set up your character, and that was just the first decision made in the development interface at the start of the game. Thus Andromeda just doesn't have the "replayability" that the first three had.
I also have about 600 hours logged in the Heleus Cluster. And I, too, am quite disappointed in the writing. Far more than the clumsy game mechanics (which @EgoMania nailed as being worse than DAI's, which also had to overcome the non-RPG design of Frostbite) the poor dialogue, relative paucity of party banter (given how much time had to be spent getting from point-to-point) and my overall "Meh, I don't really care about these characters very much" took away from what could have been a worthy successor to ME3.
Sure, MEA had a high bar. We (the players) always Want More (tm). And it definitely didn't clear it on the first attempt. But I can wish that EA had given it at least one more go, even if it would have had to move the development back to Edmonton to get it done. But maybe with Anthem and DA4 already underway, there just wasn't any bandwidth for a high-stakes rescue. 🤔
EDIT: To clarify, I thought some of the companions were pretty well done. Drack, for sure. PeeBee, if you like that sort of thing, (and can ignore the almost silly Asari faces). But Cora and Vetra were both too 2D. I really wanted to like Vetra, but after her loyalty mission she basically stopped talking. Liam was a complete caricature, and a juvenile one at that, at every encounter. (Reminded me of Alistair, in a way.) Jaal was the only "new" one, and he didn't quite become believable for me. "Neither fish nor fowl", as my mother might have said.
But everyone else, and I do mean *everyone* else, was an outline at best. Even Sloan and Reyes, who got more attention than any other non-companion NPC, didn't measure up to Howe and Loghain.
