Honestly, should Andromeda been a bit more alien?

Pretty much this. The Reapers were so alien that it took us almost an entire game just to recognise them, and three to deduce their origin. In that respect they reminded me of the Shadows from B5 in that they were so ancient and advanced that conventional fighting was never going to work - I'm reasonably sure that at their immediate pre-Reaper War strength, the navy of any one of the Council species would have wiped the floor with the Kett. They're only a danger because of the insane risk the AI took with it's lack of military protection. With the Reapers - not only were they so strong that it was unlikely that a galactic coalition would stop them, they were revealed to have not only destroyed the Protheans (who at the stage of the first game were considered to be almost godlike in their advancement), but were actually responsible for most of what we believed the Protheans had created.

I think the Kett were fine as a basic enemy. They just don't have the depth to be the ultimate opponent.

Just read the response I gave to Warrick. The TL;DR; version is that the brief for a new ME game involved moving the franchise onto a new set of hardware. You don't do that with a basic sidestory.

I've really got nothing against prequels but that's not what is being discussed here.

Agreed. We wouldn't even need non-humanoid designs, though those would be appreciated, just solid writing in depicting something 'different'.

The Angara had to be the most disappointing "aliens" in the franchise for me. BioWare did the impossible and actually created a species even more human-like than the resident "space babe" of the Asari. Which I don't know about you, but creating humans in cheap rubber masks is not what comes to mind when I picture great or noteworthy sci-fi writing (IMO). 

The Rachni and (ME 2) Geth might not be the definitive example of perfect 'alien' writing in a mainstream science fiction setting, but they were certainly miles ahead of any of the alien races in Andromeda. Take the Angara, who's sole distinguishing alien characteristic, outside of appearance, is being "emotional" and compared them to a collective consciousness of artificial intelligences, or a caste-based insect society who communicate in terms of color and sound.

Being emotional  that's about as 'alien' as a teenage girl.

True, that's why I think Eos is the most boring planet. The only thing it has going for it is that the outposts, the Nomad, the vaults etc are all still a novelty at that point.

If you're going to mention the heat haze on Elaaden... you should mention the radiation "red outs" on Eos before your reset the vault.  I don't think you have to stay within shield grids in Nevada yet... and the view of the plain filled with Kett structures looked pretty darned alien to me at the beginning of the game.

Yes'm.  But Takodana is a forest planet.  The Force Awakens

I have to challenge you there.

Who said that Mass Effect always had to be this epic story? A ME game set in the Krogan Rebellions for an example would have been an interesting setting:

1) It gives Bioware a reason to allow us to play as an Asari/Turian/Salarian hero.

2) It serves as a prequel, but the Krogan Rebellions lasted 10 years whereas the Reaper War lasted about 5 and yet a lot happened in those 5 years. So a game taking place during the Rebellions could cover a larger timeline.

3) Yes, we all know how it ended but what we dont know is all the stories involved and the many heros. We know how the Death Star plans were taken, but did that make Rogue One less interesting? Also, the ending doesnt always have to be one that impacts the final of the war like in most BW games. Take SWTOR for example, the war between the Sith Empire and Republic has a set "ending" but there are 8 individual class stories that take place during this war and all 8 of them have their own unique endings that doesnt effect the main war ending at all. So a Krogan Rebellions game could go the same way. We know how the war ends with the genophage and all, but the game could have a unique ending based on the hero we are playing as and within this ending, there can be a paragon/renegade/neutral ending.

4) Who said that everything had to be a trilogy? Bioware could make standalone ME stories that do not connect but yet still follow the same lore (like Star Wars EU)

The only problem with this is that you can't play as a human but still, it shows how Bioware could have made ME games in the MW. Also, Bioware could have made games that took place during the MET but following a human who is running away from his/her past and trying to start a new life in the Terminus or something. It could have been personal stort like DA2.

So Bioware didnt have to run away from the milky way.

Yep. It should have been more alien, and there also should have been more aliens.

Okay, I'm tired so my apologies if I come across as a tad snippy, but it seems like the entire premise of the game has been forgotten in an effort to force "alien-ness." The entire reason you're going to Andromeda is because they found a large number of habitable planets. Habitable to the species that are going. By definition you're not going to get all that far out there.

I mean, do you want ammonia-based lifeforms? Do you want a race that evolved entirely under water on their water planet? I think that would be cool too but you didn't go to Andromeda to live with ammonia-based lifeforms or to live under water. And you can't just say "needs to be more alien" and not say what needs to be more alien.

As for Habitat 7, it's an awful lot like Earth. Go hiking farther than your car to your house and you'll see that it's not all that different. I can't believe anyone is bringing that up as an example of alien-ness.

And since Elaaden and Eos were brought up in the OP's post, let's talk about those. Eos is a desert, sure, but it's saturated with radiation. So much so that they were replacing the shielding every 48 hours or so. The planet went to hell after the vault stopped working. And let's talk about Elaaden. It's a tidally locked planet. That's pretty cool! They even got the red and blue foliage right. Again, that pretty cool! Yeah, it's hot as fuck, but it's pretty cool! Elaaden quickly became one of my favorite planets.

But again, the premise negates anything too alien. This isn't Star Trek and we're not going blindly into the universe to fight guys in lizard suits. We're going to find a home. A home, by definition means "Earth-like."

And spoiler alert, the home do you find is super cool and very alien and also Earth-like! So there. I think this thread is just more pointless bashing on Bioware for not being all things to all people. Well, I'm glad every video game you've played to this point has met all your expectations, but this thread is pointless and annoying.

"Earth-like" in the broadest sense, i.e. having temperatures in a certain range, liquid water, having an atmosphere, etc. That's still a fairly minimal criteria that allows for a broad range of environments that would feel very alien (e.g. Elaaden). It was just disappointing to have this compelling sci-fi premise about migrating to a new galaxy, only to find a bunch of boring, undifferentiated desert or ice environments that look like they could be somewhere on Earth. I agree, Elaaden was cool. Wish there had been more than one like that (not repeats of Elaaden, but ones that were aesthetically unique and interesting). I also thought we could've used more new species, and that the ones we got were pretty blah. But this is all just a matter of taste, to each their own; if you liked what we got, that's great.

Anyways, this is the MEA forum, things we didn't like/would've liked to have seen done differently is a pretty natural and expected topic. Obviously nothing about that implies that every other game we've played has met all our expectations, or that MEA is expected to be all things to all people. If you find the thread to be pointless or annoying, I'm not sure why you're here? Plenty of other threads to read/post in. 

The reason I left it out is that Eos realistically spends very little time in that state. Ironically, the point that it becomes fully explorable is well past the point where it loses a lot of it's alien aspects.

Elaaden, Havarl, Kadara and Voeld maintain much of their otherworldly nature throughout the game.