But by the time you get to Mass Effect 2, that world is already built. So ME2 instead spends its time telling a more contained story in that world. It's a valid choice, even if not your cup of tea.
ME2's story works because it's a relatively well executed Seven Samurai-style plot. We've seen this story many times before. It's a classic. Sci-fi stuff threatens the galaxy, assemble the crew, watch them love/hate each other through tough challenges, some don't make it through the epic conclusion, etc. Standard. For a lot of people, it's fun to relive those story beats in an interesting new world (Mass Effect) in a novel format (video games).
I think of ME2 as a smart and enduring example of video game writing craft. They were juggling a lot of different requirements: player choices affecting the story (including from the first game); a huge, complicated new setting; making the story accessible to new players without needing to play the first game; developing interesting characters; supporting multiple protagonists (male/female, paragon/renegade) and varied character interactions based on those attributes; supporting high production values (all lines voiced by real actors); fast development timeline; on and on. Hanging all of that on a familiar plot structure probably brought a lot of structure to what was otherwise a pretty chaotic project. Furthermore, what ME2 does better than other games in the series is let characters drive the action, rather than dragging characters from event to event. The writers did an amazing job on ME2 in context.
It really is.
It's a tremendous shame that ME 3 ruins it.
The game just feels like a chore. For one thing, the environments are too big. There's a lot of walking to get from one plot-point/action-sequence to the next. Second, the combat is bad. AI, controls, weapons that don't shoot where you point them until you level up several times to upgrade the skill. The conversation trees often feel like I'm just going through the paces of uncovering Codex entries for XP, and the long, pregnant pauses between dialog portions as the game loads up the animations for your responses is super annoying. It's an exercise in frustration and it really harms the storytelling aspect. I just never feel like I'm in any kind of flow of hearing the story. It feels dragged out (and I even have bug-fixing and fast-elevator mods installed).
I'm a fairly middling FPS player, and by that I mean I usually rank in the middle of online matches against humans, and I can usually finish single-player campaigns on "hard", if I have the patience for it on those days. But ME1 has been so consistently frustrating me that I've about decided to quit.
What changes in ME2 made the combat vastly better than ME1?
The second game used ammo clips and that made combat far easier.
I also keep hearing ME1’s combat described as “clunky” and ME2’s as “smoother”. Without much experience with this type of game, I think I just don’t have the skills to feel the difference.
I really enjoyed the first Mass Effect and its three-way balance between storytelling, exploration and combat.
I was really looking forward to playing Mass Effect 2, but its storytelling didn't seem as good as the first game and exploration was almost non-existent. ME2 is more focused on combat, which seems to be what most people want (ME2 gets fantastic reviews), but to me that's the least interesting part of a game.
I never played Mass Effect 3, but I hear it is even more combat-focused.