What was Andromeda missing?

The ultimate No True Scotsman if I ever saw one.

Many thanks for that!  Changing the levels is certainly a big improvement: I'd not noticed before how the game used "splashes" of music to counterpoint what characters were saying.

Quality.

The last two posts...

I'll start by saying i thought the game was awright, i got it day 1 an played through it fine an animations etc never bothered me, thats no to say that at every step i couldn't shake the feeling of "i've did this before" because thats all i could think that first playthrough.

Anyhow for me i felt they totally missed the mark completely with ME:A, undoubtedly the original trilogy, controversy aside, is one of best sci-fi game experience's out there an to do another SP game struck me as stupid. For me they should have capitalized on the so called huge success of me3 mp an built a ME game in the vein of Destiny either by still going to Andromeda, making destroy canon or set it up before the original trilogy started, for me the only right way forward after the trilogy was a online game

Andromeda to me felt like it was trying to be a love letter to ME 1 instead of trying to be its own thing. The Kett were a cross between the geth and reapers, finding the vaults is similar to finding the beacons, the Initiative leadership was the new council, SAM was pretty much the prothean cypher, and the squadmates were halfassed versions of the ones from the original trilogy which is a shame.

To me the squadmates had the potential to be great but they fell flat for some reason. It was like they were great concepts but they didn't flesh them out enough and they became mashed up copies of the orginal trilogy squad. It even added relatives of characters which makes it seem like a really small universe. Do we really need Zaeed's son or Conrad's sister?

One would also think that there would be a lot of different species in the Andromeda galaxy similar to the milky way. We have humans, asari, turians, krogan, etc. So far this galaxy is only home to the kett, angara, and whoever made the angara. This galaxy felt pretty empty compared to the other games.

Do we really need the storyline about the angara being created by another race? This is once again heading into original trilogy territory with it being similar to geth/quarians and leviathans/reapers.

Instead of feeling like an explorer, I felt like Shepard lite. Ryder didn't seem like a pathfinder. Yeah there were missions where he/she had to establish colonies but with everything going on with the Kett it seemed like a very small part of the story. There just wasn't a balance between exploration and taking on the antagonist.

Obvious presentation issues aside, Andromeda was a game in dire need of much better writing.

There is evidence that another alien species existed in Heleus as villages at a bronze age tech level are discovered on one planet but the Scourge wiped them out. It's a shame they didn't keep them, interacting with a bronze age species could've been really exciting from a story viewpoint.

Competent management.

I think you should take Supermac's job.

Hackneyed story centered around dislikeable characters I couldn't related to
Premise, central conflict and villain were woefully underdeveloped, trite, unappealing, & un-convincing
Havaral (at least aesthetically) aside, the worlds were poorly designed barren earth like planets full of combat driven fetch quests. Not enough story driven content.
Characters were mundane, un-original, lacked memorable moments, and lacked edge, wit, soul, personality not helped by...
Underwhelming voice-acting/direction throughout the story, crew, npcs, major characters.
Memorably poor writing such as the first contact scenes
However in general unmemorable yet serviceable dialogue only serves to deliver more shooty shooty bang bang
Lack of meaningful themes or meaningful interpersonal conflict or drama
Lack of world building, inter-species geo-politics, sense of atmosphere
Lack of meaningful choices in main or side quest
Score was under-utilized and failed to convey atmosphere or sense of place and time
SAM ruined any semblance of player agency, and forward dramatic-motion
The overly light hearted tone and campy dialogue ruined any sense of danger or rising tension
The four tones system removed any semblance of crafting a convincing sense of self and created a massive player disconnect
Lack of new anything... No new gameplay mechanics or innovations of note to speak of.
Underwhelming gameplay loop, dull unrewarding loot grind.... seriously hampered by terrible GUI and...
Lack of interesting loot... The loot pool is so samey and bland (green or blue pick your poison). The only notable weapons and armor that feel and look distinct replete with any sort gameplay character are from the trilogy
Hated the gunplay... the terrible over the shoulder aiming and the reload speeds on most weapons particularly sniper rifles make me want to kick babies.
Weapons have no punch or bite... The sound design has gone backwards along with hit-boxing and hit-detection.
There's not enough gore, art design is too cartoony
Not enough enemy diversity in gameplay mechanics and combat animation
Melee sucks balls, feels float-y and unsatisfying
Biotics and tech powers need to be reworked drastically... so many stupid changes here where do I start.... I hated having tech powers detonate biotics - makes no sense, 
even changing the power logos for no reason irritated me, the muted animations and damage for combos, the serious lack of variety of biotics missing from ME3 and earlier games and the changes to animations were in particular removing Warp and warp ammo, phasic ammo, drill ammo demonstrates a lack of understanding of the evolution of ME3's gameplay mechanics and why ME3MP was so satisfying and long lasting.
The changes to the multiplayer progression system and the copy paste loot dump crippled it's longevity & demonstrated a massive misunderstanding or active distain of the player base.

I could go on but suffice it to say, Andromeda was barely a foot forward, several major glaring steps backwards and any future Mass Effect game will hopefully be as far removed from the story and gameplay of MEA as possible if the series is to have any long term future.

If Meridian was a suicide mission they would have all died on my watch. Especially pube-face.