I finished Mass Effect 2 on Monday, so here are my thoughts. Hopefully not too long.
I played as an imported female Jessica Shepard (who's super hot, thank you very much), who was a Paragon millionnaire level 50+ in Mass Effect 1. I chose Soldier again, since that's the canonical choice. (I wish New Game+ in ME2 let me change classes.) My final playtime, on Normal, was 53 hours, and I probably died 10-15 times total. I don't think I ever got stuck on any part of the game (unlike in ME1, where I ran into some trouble with Benezia and a couple of other parts). I like to look around and smell the roses, so the 53 hours (which included every loyalty mission and probably 90% of the side quests at least) are probably more like 35 or 40 hours for most people accomplishing the same stuff.
GAMEPLAY: Well, it's hard to be objective about ME2's gameplay, because it's hard to separate the story and dialog from the gameplay; after all, you're always an active participant in the story, as opposed to it just happening in cutscenes. It's more than the sum of its parts, and all I know is I was really enthralled with this game for about 85% of it. So, the gameplay must be pretty damn awesome.
Trying to be as objective as possible, though, the parts I enjoyed most were (as usual) the dialog trees, the conversations, the character development, the moral choices. I enjoyed zipping around the galaxy, too, though said galaxy felt a bit empty compared to the first game. But the dialog and story development are really where it's at. No game that I've played delivers like this game on that front.
My only complaint in terms of the dialog part of this is that it's all a bit too straight-forward. There's no Charm/Intimidate statistic -- it's all about how Paragon/Renegade you are -- and neutral responses never lead anywhere good. Therefore, there's really no "skill" involved in the dialog. You can't talk someone down with actual reason or intimidation; simply put, if you've got a Blue dialog choice to use, it will succeed. If you got a Red, it will succeed. If you don't, it will fail. Simple -- a little too simple. Kind of like the game's myriad of fetch quests. It's not bad, but it can be made more sophisticated, like a more serious version of Monkey Island dialog fighting.
The 2nd biggest part of the game is, of course, the combat. This is undoubtedly a huge improvement over Mass Effect, though not in the way that I expected. Instead of trying to "fix" ME combat and inventory issues, they super-simplified them and/or threw them away to come up with something really streamlined. The result is pretty damn good but not quite as satisfying as a truly deep RPG combat system IMO. In fact, it's not very RPG-ish at all -- at least, not as a Soldier -- and this part is more similar to a 3rd-person shooter than any other genre. So the question is, does it work as a 3rd-person shooter? Yes. It's not up there with the best (Gears and Uncharted), but it is better than anything else I've played. Mechanically, it works well but could use more refinement (for instance, you should REALLY be able to vault over stuff without having to get into cover first). In terms of level design, it is unfortunately really very repetitive. It really is generally a series of rooms with convenient crates, with very little in the way of set pieces or dynamic changes in environments. I will say that there were 2 moments when ME2 transcended this -- the Archangel recruitment mission finale, and the Tali recruitment mission with the hazardous sun rays -- but this was the exception rather than the rule.
The inventory system has seriously been almost eliminated, which is good because it sucked in ME. I wanted to whine about this, but honestly ME2's system was just fine. A little more emphasis on loot probably wouldn't have hurt -- shiny new equipment is always fun in an RPG -- but this system worked really well.
What unequivocally sucked was how ME2 dealt with the stultifying Mako unexplored planet missions from ME1. They got rid of them in favor of a handful decent but really tiny side missions and a terrible planet scanning mini-game. Overall, this was still a *relative* positive, because you have to do a whole shitload less planet scanning than you had to do Mako bullshit, but I feel like this solution was a cop-out. After all, the Mako concept wasn't bad; it was the execution that sucked. Is the planet-scanning bad enough to mark the game down? Yes, but not by much. All told, you DO need to do at least a couple of hours of it, and a couple of hours of something not at all fun should not be in a game. Still, I'll take it given how good the rest of ME2 is. At least the results of planet scanning (the various upgrades) were worth it.
STORY/WRITING/ACTING: This game is truly the benchmark for writing and voice acting in video games. BioWare has always been great at this, but Mass Effect 2 really outdoes everything before it. I don't even know where to begin. The script for this game is huge, yet somehow every line is convincingly written. There is a ton of choices for what to say and what the other person might respond with, yet if you listed to the dialog, it flows perfectly. The dialog wheel wasn't invented by BioWare (Indigo Prophecy had the same idea before ME1), but it's implemented fantastically here. Given the grim subject matter, ME2 could easily have been depressing, but there's a ton of humor, too. My female Shepard was going to sex up Archangel, and the way he was uncomfortable with the idea was endearing and funny... but when Mordin (the Salarian doctor) offered to give me a range of ointments and sex videos, I just about died. (In the end, I elected to be just friends with Archangel. Didn't want to cheat on Liara. Ha.)
Every character is explored (if that's what you want). I feel like I really know Miranda, I really know Mordin, and I really know Archangel. There are no throwaways (like Garrus was in the first game). Even Grunt the Krogan was funny, like when he informed me that "we should probably get behind... stuff" when that elevator was coming down in the Thane recruitment mission. The loyalty missions were generally strong. Some were rather underwhelming, though. The Grunt mission was rather unconvincing, for example. And I really expected more from Subject Zero's background. But the others were just right, even Zaeed's.
To repeat what everyone else is saying, the way ME1 choices were reflected in ME2 was seriously awesome. Granted, the actual effects of your choices seemed somewhat minor (emails received, certain references, the Presidium conversations), but even that is kick-ass. And the choices made in ME2 are sure to have huge repercussions in ME3.
It's hard to levy any really damaging criticism against ME2 on the story/writing front. I'll list the few things that ground my gears. One, the story itself was disappointingly simplistic and also felt less epic than the first game's (and that game's story itself was also nothing special). It also felt rather unrealistic; the Council's lack of interest or surveillance as I waged this one-ship battle against the Collectors was unconvincing. Two, while it was emotionally affecting, the way the game starts an invisible timer if you choose to do a certain "wrong" decision in the mid-game (and it's NOT obvious it's the wrong decision) was a little frustrating. And finally, the chick voicing Miranda was bad. She sounded like she just wanted to go home. She's a Cerberus officer... not a robot.
But overall, ME2 is second to none in these regards.
GRAPHICS: Well, the frame rate has been fixed. Phew. Also, those weird annoying character self-shadows are pretty much gone. Overall, the game looks great. It's great technically in some areas, and in those areas where it's not, it cleverly uses lighting and backgrounds to cover it up and still look great.
All the characters look spectacular (interestingly... again except Miranda). I mean, their faces are just absolutely popping with detail. It's uncanny and, I think, unmatched. There is quite a bit of aliasing in the environments, though, and the textures are rather boring and repetitive, plus there's pretty much no physics. However, to cover this up, the film grain effect really masks the aliasing (well done, much better than in the first game); and the backgrounds make you not care about the boring crate next to you. The sights you see around you in Illium are just ridiculous. I felt like I was in the middle of Blade Runner. I just stood and stared. All the REALLY impressive stuff was away in the distance (not actually around me), but did I care? No! It looked spectacular.
MUSIC: I think stylistically it was pitch-perfect, but only one tune actually stood out and was memorable, and that was the club music in Afterlife on Omega. In the first game, there were several memorable tracks I still remember. So, this could have been even better, but it's not a detriment in any way.
REPLAY VALUE: Like I said, I am a sloooow player who likes to walk around everywhere, look, and talk to everyone. I did everything there was to do on Normal in 53 hours. I'm burnt out, but I can easily see New Game+ing it for a Renegade run sometime down the road, for another 30 hours. I am rather pissed I can't pick a different class with New Game+, however, so I'm stuck with Soldier if I want all the NG+ bonuses. However, as far as hour of enjoyable single-player gameplay, this game is as good as it gets. At the very least, you have to do it to see what happens when you handle different dialog situations differently.
GAMEPLAY: A-
STORY/WRITING/ACTING: A
GRAPHICS: A-
MUSIC: B+
VALUE: A
OVERALL: A
