The biggest problem with Mass Effect's dialogue

That is way too reasonable. 

IKR?!

I liked sarcastic Hawke the mostest sooo...

What's wrong with jokes? And I don't remember any scenes where they joked at an inappropriate time.

I noticed this too and was wondering if it was a Frostbite thing. Inquisition did the same thing and players didn't like that.

My personal opinion to the OP:

They tried too hard.

I saw someone post up that things were different when it came to the Citadel DLC because we were dealing with characters we had had 3 games (or 2) to get to know. Whereas, in ME:A, we have a new cast of characters who are relatively two dimensional. Cracking jokes and trying to be like Garrus or Wrex. When in the MEOT, the game was seasoned with humor. Instead of being a bunch of sarcastic idiots.

Context and self awareness are very important to achieve a more uniform atmosphere.
IE: ME1-Wrex to drunken General, "You're drunk." General, "You're ugly, but at least I'll be sober in the morning."
Tali and garrus in the elevator. she asks garrus about leaving c-sec. he says he likes it. she says.
"I'm glad that the imminent destruction of all organic life in the galaxy has improved your career opportunities"....or something close to that.
(While you're debriefing the Council on the Noveria mission, if you've killed the Rachni Queen)
Turian Councilor: "Do you enjoy committing genocide, Commander?" Shepherd: "Depends on the species, Turian."

Point is, ME1 had the same kind of one liners, but they were more spread out over the game. They were brief moments of levity in a game that had more serious tones.

So wait, which is it? We can't criticize things the MET did because it came out ten years ago and we can only criticize games from the past seven days (or whatever arbitrary timeframe you decide), or we can't criticize the MET because it did great things right and was revolutionary - and even though criticizing something that came out ten years ago is UNACCEPTABLE, it's totes okay to look back on it with rose colored glasses and talk about how nothing will ever compare to it in the history of everything ever in the world?

Like for real, if you say we can't criticize it, then you don't get to praise it for being the BESTEST EVA and whine about MEA not living up to it.

The MET is great, but it has a fuckton of flaws, from gameplay in ME1 being atrocious, to the writing being as bad or worse than anything in MEA (at least Ryder could show actual emotion in their conversations), to shitty shitty shit shit sidequests.

ME1 has a good (if bog-standard Bioware) story, but is practically unplayable going back to it, with all the advances the series has made in gameplay and especially combat.

ME2 has great companions - some of the best of any Bioware game - but a fairly crap main story, and for a so-called "suicide mission", it's fairly easy to get through it without losing a single companion, even on a first playthrough.

ME3.... well. I like it, but I remember the Great BSN Shitstorm of 2012.

MEA's story is no worse than ME2's main story, and the writing and companions and humor are all pretty standard level for the trilogy overall. It's just that the en vogue thing to do is decry it as the worst game in history because it's not the Witcher/Zelda/HZD/Whatever new and shiny game has come out this week that all of the edgelords are fapping to.

I played about 40hrs, uninstalled it and sold the disc (got a decent price as well). So am I allowed an opinion? No? Well here it is anyway.
The dialogue was bland, bland, bland. After 40hrs I didn't care about my squadmates, my crew, anybody I was supposed to be helping or any of the guys I was shooting.
Just couldn't care less.
Then I decided to try DA:I. Never played it due to the reception it got and I love it. Cassandra, Solas, Sera, Varric are all brilliantly written (I'm only 10hrs in so haven't recruited many yet).
Sidequests are a bit grindy but I don't care because I'm already obsessed with my team.
These are the characters ME:A needed to engage me and that's down to the dialogue.
ME:A is formulaic pap. That's fine sometimes, and in small doses, but not when I'm expected to put in a hundred hours.

So much this. There seems to be this weird thing going where only negative comparisons with ME1 are acceptable, despite the reasons conflicting with each other. Literally everything MEA did better than ME1 is excused away by the fact that ME1 started the franchise.

The ironic thing is that DAI - which also typically comes up as a MEA comparison - got the same treatment. All of what it did better than DAO didn't count for anything... up until a few years passed, at which point it became a great game and how Bioware need to go back to doing games like that rather than MEA.

Regarding ME2, the general thing appears to be compare MEA to whichever game where the aspect in question was weaker in MEA. No-one compares MEA's story to ME2 because ME2's overall storyline blew chunks, its only ever compared to the first game (which arguably had the best one of the three) or the trilogy as a whole. Conversely, MEA's gameplay is rarely compared to ME1. In fact it's rarely compared, as 'I don't play ME for the gameplay' card is played and conveniently puts one of MEA's best aspects out of consideration. Same goes for character depth (ME2 is always the comparison), relationships (ME3), overall scope (ME3) etc etc etc.

MEA did tons of things wrong and I still consider it to be the weakest entry in the franchise, but I do sometimes wonder whether the ones hitting it hardest realise how transparent their criticism is.

Can I Like this more than once? No? too bad. 

Anyway, my two cents. as someone who has publicly defended this game from people like the OP and others, who constantly just fire venom at MEA, I have to be totally honest here. I got about halfway through my second go through the game, before putting it down. I haven't touched it since, that was months ago. There are a multitude of reasons for my lack of desire to return to the game, but the OPs point is indeed one of them. This lighthearted, upbeat road trip attitude is simply not enjoyable for me. I love humor when it's used to break up the tension appropriately. But it can't just be quick fire quibs all the time. Liam's loyalty mission is probably the most glaring example of a serious situation being utterly and completely trampled on due to sheer ridiculous humor, and actually got the 1 and only laugh from me the game got, and it was for the wrong reason. Even the antagonist of this mission is written so horribly hammy and mustache twirlingly cliche that the entire experience just felt like a parody of the game I was playing. It felt like a Citadel DLC mission, which is not what I want. Citadel DLC worked back then, because the fans needed some forth wall breaking love to emotionally say goodbye after the roller-coaster that was the MEOT. Citadel, imo, was a DLC that could have only worked when it did, and nowhere else. I for one, sure as hell don't want "Mass Effect Citadel: Everything's one big party" to use a bit of hyperbole for emphasis. 

I personally feel this is one of the main problems that also plagued the Fable franchise. Fable The Lost Chapters has it's hammy, ridiculous Monty Python moments to be sure. But it's main narrative was played totally straight, and while the character interactions options were not good by RPG standards, imo, it was passable for it's purposes. However as that franchise progressed, it became so damned bipolar about what it was trying to do. Fast Forward to Fable 3, and you have a totally dark, played straight narrative about a tyrannical King enslaving his people, and Dark demons from the Void coming to destroy the world, and the only way to interact with people, is by farting in their face or playing paddy cake. That is kinda how MEA feels to me, not nearly as extreme as that, but the overall point remains. 

Yup. Also if people can accept corny dialogue like this then they need to stfu about Andromeda.

Edit:Btw I love that scene.

To be honest, I feel the same way about Citadel as you. Even back then the entire idea of it's set up was ridiculous to me. But...I needed it. I don't know if it even makes sense, but I needed it. I was so emotionally devastated after the ending crap, that I just needed, one last happy memory. Like I said, I would have absolutely loathed and despised that DLC in any other situation, but back then? I just....needed it.