For those who liked and didn't like MEA, do you think DAI was better?

No, space wins fantasy anyway.

I enjoy Mass Effect Andromeda quite a bit, but Inquisition is the superior game to me. The storytelling, companion writing and even the original score are all greatly superior in my opinion. I guess it helps that Inquisition also benefits from a history that Mass Effect was forced to abandon because of the scorching of the old setting. Combat wise Mass Effect's always been the better set of games to me, but on most levels I found them to be inferior to the DA franchise.

Despite my preference for science fiction and shooters over the sword & board and fantasy setting, I just can't pick Mass Effect over it.

I think what really sets DAI apart for me also is Solas. He's easily one of my favorite characters in the franchise let alone this game, and Mass Effect's never offered anyone on his level to me. 

I admit in enjoying how polarizing Sera is. People either love her to bits or loathe her with every fiber of her being. That in and of itself is a bit entertaining. 

As for the dragons, they really are better than the architects, but I think that the dragons in this game are just beautifully designed, sometimes to the point where I can't help but feel a little bad for waltzing into their territories and wiping them out. But that epic soundtrack playing when I take on the Ferelden Frostback and Iron Bull sounding overjoyed all the while is just too good. 

TBH I'm kind of indifferent to her. I felt like I could like her if she was padded out a bit more.

Nope. Bombed out on DA:I about 2/3rds of the way through and have never gone back. I just found it really tedious, the greatness of Cassandra, Dorian and Sera notwithstanding.

Currently starting my second playthrough of ME:A. It's just a better game, in the sense of 'game'.

Game flow in both Frostbite franchises are weak, but I agree with you. Andromeda, had weaker writing, but better game flow. Inquisition can literally exhaust your patience especially if you're an OCD completionist like me. Andromeda needs to really tighten the fetch quests and make them impact the overall end-game story telling. This is a common weakness among several BioWare products. 

My first game of Inquisition I was able to go through quickly since I only did the critical path, but my more completion based attempt took about 18 months because I kept burning out since so much of the game feels the same.

Me too. Though I do like the mouse controls in Origins and DA2 compared to Frostbite. Playing a tank on that engine was fun. Playing a tank in Inquisition is not fun for M+KB+keypad. It's a chore. It's more fun as a mage (barrier, support, staff, attack spell, staff, barrier, etc.) especially lore wise. A Catholic pro-Chantry, pro-circle mage marked as the Inquisitor. Loved it. Cassandra and Josephine... loved them. Dorian, Blackwall (another redeemable hero who joins the Grey Wardens.) and Sera (yeah... her.) have the best companion missions. However, with Andromeda, it was a matter of practice and getting used to not having tactical pausing (I want to see the battlefield beyond my POV. The jump jets give me that brief battlefield assessment, but not enough. It's another step back in direction with Frostbite,) but again... I found way to overcome it. I can't overcome Paragon/Renegade-less Ryder. Sorry. That's a very unique BioWare deal (Fallout 4 got rid of the karma system. Big mistake IMHO.) and it would've helped shaped Ryder into the coming sequel. I see it as missed potential, not faulty execution. Also, 20 months. Wow. I don't care how the game was received if I were a developer. 1.09 is a pair of middle fingers back to the critics. 

While I have a lot of problems with DA:I and Andromeda did improve on some of the issues in that game (though not many) DAI is a much better game now that I've played both. I am more invested in the DA series though so I have that bias.

That said I do think many of the things people tear Andromeda apart over existed in DAI or were worse in DAI. Technical issues on release were worse, DA:I had more generic fetch quests and less well written interesting side quests. It also made you do some of them to advance the story where as with Andromeda you can just ignore everything you aren't interested in. DAI is full of plot holes and writing that just doesn't really make much sense, Andromeda has that too but not to quite the same extent I don't think.

The thing that makes DAI win for me is it just tells a more interesting story with characters I actually care about. I don't hate Andromeda's characters, I quite like some of them but non of them are as compelling as even some of the worst main characters in Inquisition.

Andromeda has much better combat but then combat is not what made the DA or the ME series great.

I agree that Inquisition is awful for completionists though. I ended up giving up on completing everything because I knew I would never manage it without quitting and wanted to finish the story. Inquisition also benefits from the Trespasser dlc which improved the entire game massively.

Both games have this illusion of choice nonsense going on but Andromeda has it to a much larger extent than Inquisition. I had issues with paragon/renegade but it was better than this at least.

I did like MEA's final mission better than DAI's but the twist ending of DAI (pre-Trespasser) almost makes up for it. I also like that people don't stop talking to you post-ending in MEA like they do in Inquisition. Makes the end less an "end" and more like just one more milestone along the way.

When/if you do, you can post your playthrough in this thread.