Is it worth it, MEA?

Is ME:A on par in greatness and replayability to that of the first three? No.

Is it even a really good game? Subject to opinion, but no, not really.

However, it does offer some gaming enjoyment, if your expectations aren't too high. The writing is weak in a lot of spots, thus many of the missions, parts of the main story, and especially the side quests, can be quite meaningless and shallow. But is there any fun at all in there somewhere? Yes, absolutely.

Even with latest patch (1.10) you'll still find certain quests feeling unfinished, some are, some were just the result of laziness rather than oversight.

But still, it's fun tooling around in the rover, patrolling the wastes and clearing out camps and installations of pirates and Kett. The fights with the over-powered Architects are long and repetitive, with no auto-save points created during the entire process (thus one wrong move after 30 mins+ of battle and you're back to square one), but yet every time I've beaten one it's given me a good feeling of me/Ryder having accomplished something no one else in the Initiative can do or has done. 

The jump-jetting and jetpack-forwarding took some getting used to, but I'm finding that to offer some fun as well, getting to places I previously thought unreachable.

And it's more Mass Effect to play. 

I like the concept of the story, of this massive trip to another galaxy, the trouble on arrival, finding new aliens both hostile and friendly, etc etc. As I said, the writing is just weak is all, which tends to render many of the conversational choices as all the same, often having the same outcome to an encounter or task no matter which way you respond or now you play it out. The game tries, but it just falls quite short of having the poignant impact on the player that the first three games had.

But is it WORTH playing? Yes. If you love Mass Effect, then by all means there's at least some fun to be had. So yes. And that's in no small part due to the fact that it's on sale at a greatly reduced price. Fact is it's now price about exactly what it's worth.

I played the heck out of the first three games. More times than I can clearly recall, actually. I was well primed to gobble up MEA with a spoon.  I look back on this game, and while I can recognize that a lot of hard work went into what made it to release, I can't shake the disappointment on several levels.

I don't mind the open worlds, I'm good with that - applaud it, really. The Frostbite engine seems to create beautiful environments, but doesn't seem to do much else without fitting it in with a sledgehammer.  Otherwise the graphics just looked like someone took a sledgehammer to them.  I was frankly amazed that the game was published with such glaring graphics problems. What. The. Heck?  If I can fire up ME and have the animation and graphics be more appealing than MEA... Houston - We have a problem.

The quest mechanics seemed bugged and incomplete. There were many "collection" quests with issues. Ew. Some quests were just plain broken.

And... multiplayer.  While ME3 got me playing multiplayer again, I was saddened by MEA.  When I heard that there was no beta test, cancelled for some rather unbelievable reason, that was the first time I felt uncertain about the game. When I actually tried multiplayer, I was, again, amazed. Not in a good way.  Best shotgun in the game was a pistol. Best AR in the game was again, a pistol.  Many "adjustments" later and while there are more viable weapons, silly things like useless Cobra missiles rankle. Multiplayer was far too buggy, corrections far too slow, and over-corrections far too annoying.

On the other hand, the prime/trigger mechanic of several powers works better than it did in 3, and while I like that, so many other disappointing things persist.

Finally, the main story - spoiler tagged for those who might possibly not have gotten the memo:

So bottom line:

If you have never played any Mass Effect before, and have $20 burning a hole in your pocket, I'd say go buy the Mass Effect Trilogy. You'll only get a minimum of the DLC (for ME1 I think), and will have more hours of more fulfilling game play.  Once you get through that, and if you have $20 more... go get as much of the DLC you are missing for ME2 (Overlord, Stolen Memories, Lair of the Shadow Broker, etc).  With your next $20, get DLC for ME3.  Then come online with ME multiplayer - people are still playing that and having fun. Its easier to fill out a PUG match in ME MP than in MEA MP.

When you've exhausted all the DLC and are hungry for a little more Mass Effect, then spend the $20 on MEA.

@Erika_Asuna

I can't disagree with you, although I know I'll eventually probably play it again, if for no other reason, to see if I'm able to like it more. My objectivity might reassert itself after the initial disappointment has aged a bit.

I have played it all the way through at least once, with my second playthrough plagued by various frustrating bugs and annoyances, some related to just having the audacity to start a New Game +. I confess the bugs and aggravation took away what remained of my invested interest in completing it a second time, and I didn't stick around to see if patches or community mods might fix it.

To be honest BioWare's apparent lack of care in the production led to me not caring enough to see if they'd get around to fixing it. They abandoned the title long before I did.

I find the whole concept of the Andromeda Initiative and the Pathfinder rather uninspired. Ryder + AI = Superhero on demand.

Shepard was somebody you could feel engaged with as a person in an impossible fight. Ryder seems like a fresh young adult who hasn't really had time to develop much character and just sort of casually strolls through everything, including dying twice. I just can't really connect to the setting, story or main character.

Some of the companions are cool but a lot of the convo's are rather awkward.

So for general gameplay and beautiful surroundings this game is good but for story and immersion I find it uninspiring. I had the same issue where I recently started it up again but just didn't care to continue.

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@EgoMania wrote:

So for general gameplay and beautiful surroundings this game is good but for story and immersion I find it uninspiring. I had the same issue where I recently started it up again but just didn't care to continue.

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That right there says it all. There's just not enough substance there to engage the player to care, about the companions and crew, about the missions, about the side tasks. I've played this game now 4 times through to completion and I can't identify even one encounter, one choice, one event, where the path I chose actually mattered one way or the other. The devs removed my ability to choose good or renegade it through, or play a blend of both, and have my choices MATTER. Thus there is no way to instill any sort of meaningful discourse with anyone or any thing. Ryder barely bats an eye upon learning his/her father is dead. Other NPC's speak almost disrespectfully about Ryder Sr and... nothing.

Had just a bit more caring went into the development of this game it would have been passable, more playable, and at least somewhat worthy to be included in the series. Assuming EA/Bioware were going for "passable" and "at least". But it certainly would have helped the player care more.

If there ever is a 5th game in the works, put more funding and effort into the writing and single player RPG side of the game. You've now got all you need on the shooter/multiplayer side, barring a few tweaks to iron out any remaining glitches of course, but this game's original intent, it's original main draw and strong suit, was it's incredible story-driven RPG side.

Do that and you'll have another winner.