The middle one is usually best isn't it?

Yes and no in terms of ME, ME3 is the best gameplaywise and as a game, whilst I prefer 2 for the types of missions and subplots.

No. The first Matrix movie was by far the best. As for Mass Effect, it depends on what you value most.

Mass Effect: Best story and world building

Mass Effect 2: Best characters and characterizations (except Shepard)

Mass Effect 3: Best gameplay? I liked it enough to play plenty of Multiplayer when it first came out, but I only played the campaign once.

I like ME2 the best overall.

In terns of chars and pacing, ME2. Gameplay, ME3.    I played ME3 again recently after the initial touch (and after I installed mods), it felt draggy to me. So yes. ME2 is the best one of the three.

Eh, I don't know about the rest, I just know that I liked ME2 best because of squadmates, romance, customization and to a lesser extent, weapons.
ME3 has it beat in combat, weapons and the romance content with Garrus.
But ME1 has a special place for roleplaying dialogue, different approaches to combat zones since we weren't restricted to narrow corridors. Sniping felt like true sniping, exploration wasn't an arena battle in a disguised pit, there were alternative outcomes to how we solved a problem.

I agree with this.  One of the other things was that right hand advantage is hard to use in ME2 because Shep will point his weapon in the air if you get too close to cover. Small thing, could be considered part of mobility system as well.  Or part of the cover system, as ME2 wanted to enforce cover in different ways than ME3 did.

Also heavy melee was sort of useful in ME3, the change in melee system made it more annoying to reload cancel in ME3 SP.

well ME2 was mostly just recruitment/loyalty missions, it was very fun but kinda repetitive. BUT i loved music in it above all (thanks to amazing Jack Wall!). Suicide mission also was one of more fun things through series.

ME3 was great, i didnt mind the ending, it was like in gothic 3 for me (just sad that series had ended), citadel DLC cracked me up way too many times, a lot of cool weapons, multiplayer is rather engaging.

I think ME1 was most fun for me, you exploring in mako (although terrain looks rather simple), being able to pick omni tools, Armour, biotic amps and cool mods. also missions were very fun, also enemies on harder difficulties that didnt have shields got them, would be a nice feature in mp (like troopers getting them) and most of all...






Elevators!

He's more machine than man by then.

Right, the real reason was because ME3 needed to be more "visceral," "fast paced," and what-have-you.

This one would be a toss up for me. There are trade-offs for parts 2 & 3. Content wize....#2 wins...the missions feel far more expansive than part 3. But the combat in part 3 is what I fell in love with the most..as it was the reason I did 7 single player runs in part 3..as opposed to doing only 2 in part 2. also, fuck all that mining. hours and hours..... I want those back.

A lot of my ME2 playthroughs I never did any mining. I had enough from an ME1 import to upgrade what I needed for the playthrough