I finished Mass Effect yesterday and enjoyed every minute of it. It does a fantastic job of giving constant player choice that truly changes the outcome of the game. I decided to play an Infiltrator class (Sniper/Engineer) and went full Paragon(Good) by the time I was done. Every time I made a good choice, it wondered how things would change if I made a different choice. I'll soon go back and play with a different character type and focus on Renegade story arcs.

The game has a TON of side missions and stories, with dozens of planets to explore purely as an option. The combat locations are basic copies all over the place, with just the enemies and cover layout being different. There was enough of a change to feel a bit fresh, but the buildings were completely identical and it was hard not to feel like you were in the same place a lot of the time.

It took me 30 hours and some change to finish the game doing pretty much every side mission I came across. But, at one point in the story it takes you into the final arc without much warning of not being able to finish any other side stuff.

There is an achievement for completing the majority of the game with each of the alt chars. I took Ashley and Wrex to every mission i went to...and didn't get the achievement for either. Weird.