[veist]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

You get plenty of cerberus by the end. 8 or 9 hours might be a quarter of the game if you do everything. It took me more than 40 hours to finish, playing on Normal (about as long as ME2 without DLC took playing on Insanity, or my last playthrough on normal including Overlord, Shadow Broker and Arrival).

I'd say in total I found 3 to be more engaging than 2. I think the story's better -- they cover an unbelievable amount of ground by the end, connect 3 to both 1 and 2 in ways I didn't expect, and it never really gets boring at any point. Aside from the final 10 minutes of the game (general consensus, not necessarily my personal opinion...) it may be the best storytelling bioware's done, all things (story, cinematics) considered. I would also say the combat's the best in the series and to me the EMS is less tedious than either the Mako or planet scanning. I've seen complaints, of course, but I like the way side quests are tied into exploration. I also really like the way that many side quests are given via people speaking on the citadel.

If it's not the perfect game (end complaints...) it's certainly the next evolutionary step toward it. I've been wondering where they go from here with the franchise, and I really hope it's a Mass Effect 4, although I don't know how in the world they can do that. Before I played ME3 I was thinking they'd take the franchise toward another game genre, maybe straight FPS, but now I just want more of the kind of thing they did in the first 3. Shooter/RPG hybrid, heavy on story. I think anything else would leave me feeling like I want more.

I actually started my second playthrough last night. I think after this one I'm going to go all the way back to ME1 and play the trilogy through slowly.

I'm really interested in what they end up doing for DLC with this one. I mean, ME2 has two pieces of DLC that are easily head and shoulders some of the best DLC ever in Arrival and Lair of the Shadowbroker. Those both really raised the bar for the quality of DLC.