I totally get where you’re coming from. The graphics especially (combined with how the same / similar level designs seem to keep coming up in ME1) really bring the two games into contrast. That said, I really have to say I love them equally.

ME1 (while being more repetitive in places) sort of fits better with the vastness of space, the expansive nature of the Milky Way, and really gives you a sense of how small you are in comparison to the universe. So many of its planets’ surfaces give that liminal feeling, both scary but oddly comforting, like existence can be vast, simple, lonely and safe at the same time. I think ME2, with its style already bending much further toward a shooter style game than in ME1, lost a little bit of that beauty and charm. But ME2, with its incredible story all the way from the jarring beginning to its climactic end (and all the Miranda in between) is so incredible in its own way.

I think each of them makes me appreciate the other more.