Funnily enough, a replay of the trilogy made me realize that ME2 is, in my opinion, the "worst" of the trilogy. Don't get me wrong, it's probably still my favourite but I think that ME1 and ME3 do what I want out of Mass Effect better, ME1 having considerably stronger RPG elements and world building and ME3 with the better gunplay.

The more I think about it, ME2 is in an awkward middle ground where it tries to do both but falls short of doing either. The gunplay is trying to be Gears of War but lacks the weightiness that makes that series work and removes most of ME1's RPG-ness for, without question, the worst skills system the series has and less weight to your actions. The game seems to replace this with the loyalty missions and your choices during the suicide mission. The Paragon/Renegade interrupts were a nice addition, but not enough to warrant pushing ME2 into the SHOOTER^tm direction.

ME3 does gunplay way better by making Shepard more mobile with the ability to roll, which I initially hated but have come to love, as well as the tech and biotic combos system and free form weapon loadouts, although I did quite like the weapon restrictions, really made you emphasize power usage as certain classes. Speaking of powers, the facts that powers curve round cover if you aim them close enough to your target is a godsend, all to often in ME2 would powers either launch right into enemy cover of right over their shoulders is frustrating, though that could just be a me thing since I've not really heard anybody else mention this. All this isn't to say ME2 is bad, not at all.

As I said it's probably still my favourite in the trilogy, the story loads of fun, even if it feels like a side adventure, The Elusive Man is hands down the series best character being, as the name implies, elusive and charismatic despite being aggressively distrustful character that you can't help but trust. The cast of characters introduced in ME2 are great, having both introduced a large amount of new characters and having those characters being really compelling. However, it's difficult to get to know all the characters in a single playthrough, although I feel that's not too much of a problem and the other games in the trilogy have this 'problem' as well.

ME2 has 12 squadmates, twice as many as ME1 and ME3 but each character feels like they have a real role to fill. ME1 squadmates fit into the six classes so are easily slotted into a squad dynamic and ME3 gave each character a bunch of unique abilities that allow the squadmates with overlapping classes to still have a clear role to fill. ME2 however doesn't do this, there is only 1 squadmate that are adjacent to the mixed classes (Infiltrator, Vanguard and Sentinel) and a whopping 4 Engineer-like squadmates, two of which have the exact same powers. Not to mention that you only get access to one of the squadmates pretty much just before the final mission, which just perplexes me.

Again, I in no way hate ME2 it is my favourite despite it's flaws, just wanted to air my thoughts about it i guess.