You can customize the kills of your team. When you gain a level, the 3 people in your party all level up at the same time and get points to spend in the skill trees. You can choose to auto-level anyone you want to, or manually mold each person how you see fit. And let me tell you, you're going to want to do it yourself because of the sheer amount of decision-making to be done here. I was skeptical when I started, thinking the whole combat/levelling system was shallow compared to, say, KOTOR. It's not D+D based, but geez have they got something addictive here as well.
For example, I made an Infiltrator for my main character (whose last name is Shepard no matter what it seems - and for good reason. No matter if you are male or female, they call you Shepard in all the VA in the game which really does make it that much more immersive instead of dead space where your name would be....it's the little touches like this I tell ya. Back to my character, I have abilitites like Pistol for example. There is a bar with...oh about 15 slots maybe on it total, on some levels I will gain a new ability I can use in battle (DOT's, damage, increased accuracy+damage for little bit), and then at some points you will open up a NEW line that progresses underneath that one. I don't know if this is the exact one but say, Pistols could eventually open up Shotguns, or another weapon type. On levels where you don't gain a new ability or skill line, you are increasing damage, accuracy and/or weapon overheating.
Each character has their own "special skill line" also that gives really nice boosts to health, regen, and new abilities as well. There is a TON of customization just waiting. Also you can undo points you spent, UP UNTIL you leave that screen then it is set the way you have it.
And Ashely is a Soldier, yes. The other two, I don't remember off the top of my head.
A few more tidbits - The galaxy map is crazy. You have 4 zoom levels. Galaxy, then you get down to, say, the Hades Gamma Cluster or something like it. This then has "systems" around that you can zoom into, at which point you are in a solar system. This is where you can click on planets, derelict ships, moons, stations etc. When you pull up a planet you get a nice picture of it on the screen and a description of its surface, temp, lots of stats about it, any history and how it fits in to other events of the past etc. Sometimes that is all you get - sometimes, you can "survey" it and you will usually get some ore, mineral, ancient hidden text (quest item) and various other things. And then of course is the "land" option which means it's an explorable planet.
Once you are on a planet it's you and your Mako. You will spend most of your time on it since you can get over the mountains and craters etc on planets with ease. You have a boost-lift ability to launch you out over ravines etc that is fun but takes a little getting used to. Interestingly if you pull up your main map of the planet you can see where various things are located and set destinations so it appears on your mini-map , a Godsend really since you will be worrying about whether you can make it up that mountain up ahead if you're really crafty, or have to go around. YOu really can make it over most of them and it always amazes me, I'm looking at it saying no f'ing way, but somehow that Mako just makes it over. Once I decided to go around a particularly huge mountain, and was going along my merry way when there was a BLOOD CURDLING screech of death from behind me and the screen starting shaking violently along with my controller. I was like WTF. So I turned around....and there was nothing...barren silence all around. So I backtracked a little. About 15 seconds later I'm cautiously moving and some hell-worm thing launches up out of the ground and starts shooting some green poison goo at me....I downed it and got a load of credits and exp...it was very unexpected and amazing just like the rest of the game.
