Was Mass Effect 2 really that Much Better than MEA?

No mans sky over MEA 

It's easy to retro play older games and find fault but at the time of release ME2 offered an experience never seen before and pushed the story driven genre to the next level,very much like what the Witcher3 has done this gen. Andromeda on the other hand has advanced nothing beyond multiplayer,which other games do far,far better,in fact Andromeda takes the Bioware brand of gaming backwards.

They are different. I like both. ME2 for my fav romance and a hit parade of cewl companions, and MEA for a better overal story and good old-fashioned happy ending.

In many respects they are all favourites for me.

Cant believe I just wasted 1 hour of my life watching this "whats wrong with ME video", usualy never watch videos like this, as they are way too negative and based on ignorance and this was no different, 50% of the arguments are just wrong because not playing/not knowing/not giving enough though. The "Whats wrong with MEA" video is pretty much the same, way too many arguments based on ignorance and not knowing what he is talking about. However the MEA vid shows more about what is wrong with the game and less about attacking the "plot devices" used, like the ME2 video does.
Truth be told, BioWare was never great at writing stories and they always used borderline plot devices to justify this or that, ME and ME3 are no exceptions, and so ME2 and MEA as well. BW was always about the presentation and immersion.

That said, ME2 delivers more, despite having its own "ton of flaws" then MEA. And please do not compare the gameplay (like combat), that is just insane to compare a today game with something 7 year old. ME2 have two major problems:
1) the story just touches a general Shepard-Reaper story arc, it can be standalone without Shepard and noone would notice. Basicaly, it can be described as a major addon (remember those addons in the 90s, they were like a game, not this 5minute short DLCs from today).
2) the lazarus space magic plotdevice to justify some things, but to me, this pill is easier to swallow then MEAs "hyperion hits the scourge" or "uprising". ME2 never tries to hide the fact it was space magic and there is a reason we call this sort of things scienceFICTION. MEA on the other hand do not make us believe in space magic (not on such a high level) but force feeds us with stupidity and that is worse
THE two major problems with MEA are its underdeveloped status and all the good things are burried deep down under a huge pile of clutter and pointles filler (thanks to being open world without knowing what open world realy needs).

Catnip>Heroine>MEA>Hotdogs>ME3>ME2

This thread does raise the question of "what do people want from a Bioware game"?????

For me Bioware's game mechanics have always been a bit "janky",so game play has never been the selling point for me.Personally I want story,character and immersion....I want to progress with a team I've assembled,kit them out with gear etc......classic RPG.
I guess for new gamers who have discovered Bioware,their perspective could be very different,focusing on action,multiplayer and blowing shit up???......classic action but with a bit more story than normal.......for me,that's not what the Bioware brand was about.

ME2 (and 3) had my only issue being they were so linear(which I always called gears of war bullshit corridors) after what ME1 started. Besides that, yea, they were much better than Andromeda as at least they had a compelling story that had me wanting to come back and decisions that I felt mattered, can't do the same with Andromeda even if it fixed the linear issue I had in previous iterations. It took one step forward (open world), but two steps back (story+characters). So going open world isn't enough to hold my interest if they're going to botch up other aspects of the game I enjoyed and the reason I came back to play ME1-3 a hundred times.

We can argue all day, but ME1-3 were all rated higher, 2-3 have sold better, and they all have higher ratings by user base (as in non reviewers and actual people), essentially they are universally better games. It's also a subjective matter and ultimately someone's going to get butt hurt that one doesn't like andromeda and another will get butt hurt that one likes andromeda over the OT. Both have issues with plots(since I see people harping on about ME2s), things that make no sense, some random pointless dialogue, yata yata yata.

No it is not.

Leveldesign in ME2 is awefull, i dont know why so many people say this tunnelshooter has an great design.
Most of the Characters are so flat, only Mording and Miranda having a really good background and story the rest has so many holes in their plot, its amazing that Jack is at the end not an Turian Man.
The whole stroy is an plothole par excellence, Shepard is an fucking Deserter and we know what the Alliance is doing to get hold of deserters, but nothing happens, he can freely dance all over the cluster and thats only one example for this fucked up story dont to mention the fucked up ending.

Mass Effect Andromeda is not the Hailsbringer but it is far more an good written game with more deep characters and with love designed places than ME2.

Except for invironmental graphics, jet pack and my Scotty dearest, yes. Everything else goes to ME2 for me

So what was the story in ME2? Note that you can't have anything from ME1 or 3 to reference - so what was it?

As I noted before it works best as an expansion pack for ME1. They should have released a 'proper' sequel to ME1 (which plotwise is ME3).