My opinion on the game, six month later ...

I like both franchises minus MEA and DAI.

Problem is, DAO, DA2, and the MET were not compared against TW3. For me, TW3 and even Horizon had set a high bar for open world RPGs, I just do not think Bioware can match, but we shall see with DA4.

My opinion of the game has plummeted. I was one of the early defenders, hugely hyped for another ME game in any shape or form, and I loved the premise. I also held out some hope that they would make an earnest effort to improve things based on the statements made shortly after release.

Since then, the hype cooled, the flaws kept hitting, and I moved on to better games that demonstrate how unforgivably bad MEA was. At least I got my wish - the IP will be transferred to more competent hands.

Well, yes, atmosphere, combat, possessions, events and characters that you get invested in are pretty much the ingredients of a video game.

Not only the living world, but The Witcher 3 has also great characters, good dialogues and a good plot. You can actually care about the quests you're doing, and they actually have consequences in the game (Like releasing a guy that was tied to ropes and later finding out he was a bandit, or insulting a priest and later he sends assassins after you). Also, there are some quests that are really funny and original (like fixing temples that were being vandalized and finding out that they were being destroyed by nihilistic atheists with a lot of references to Nietzsche, or the guy that keeps challenging you to a duel on "behalf of his lady"). While ME:A most of the quests are "Hey, I need to find someone/something", then you go to the place, find the person's corpse or that she/he had actually joined some bad people (then you make a binary choice that has zero consequence) and then go back to the quest giver. 90% of the quests are like that. Some of them you even scan a thing that it's like 3 feet away and the quest is completed, it's pretty pathetic. Not to mention the quests that let you "on hold" for 30 hours in the game.

Other small things that, when banded together, really show how immersive TW3 is: You really see the country is at war when you walk around and see people hanging from trees, destroyed villages, corpses on the road, battlefields. The sun really rises in the east and settles in the west (look at the detail!), the people in the city react to the world around them, Geralt's beard grows with time (and the characters make comments if you let it grow!), etc.

If you read his datapad and her console, you can see she's lying and the medic was telling the truth. 

I said this in another thread, but Andromeda suffers from the universe not having any history.

In TW, you have books, characters on different side of conflicts.

Same as in ME, and DA. Jack was mistreated in a Cerberus facility, therefore she hates Cerberus and has issue with the Cerberus officers on the ship. Krogan and Salarians disagreeing over the Genophage, Quarians and Geth giving two different pictures over who was most to blame for the war. In Dragon Age, you have characters on different sides of the Mage/Templar conflict, the need for Grey Wardens, blood magic, etc.

This allows the PC to play a character of certain beliefs and have different relationships and interactions based on which side you're on, and gives your decisions more weight with your squad.

You didn't have any of this in Andromeda. Your crew, while they had some personal insecurities, didn't have any issues they were on one side of, or anything they really believed strongly in or stood for. Even worse, you really didn't establish anything in the game that would carry forward.

They could have done something as simple as having crew members be against Jaal, or moreso a Kett defector that was telling you of the inner workings of Kett society that no one trusted. Having someone trying to humanize the Kett and saying something like they would go extinct without exalting creates these type of things. Everything is just so shallow and not fleshed out in the game, and it's shocking as far as the squad goes because you probably spend more personal time with them in this game than any other Bioware game.

A slight correction here, but The Wither trilogy of games is an original story. The same will be the case for Cyberpunk 2077. With regard to The Witcher, the games take place five years after the novels. Nothing in the games is actually considered canon by the author of the books. All that was written was creative liberties taken by CDPR, itself.

Krogan vs Nexus? Outcasts vs Nexus? The Roekaar?

Did you miss those?

It's ironic to think that multi-billion global conglomerates have trouble competing with independent studio. 

The Roekaar are an enemy, I don't see how they even apply.  What conflict is there other than they want to kill all non-angarans, there really isn't a second side to them.  You start a colony on Eladeen during the game, and the AI has people there (at least in my game).  You pick a leader on Karara and get a settlement, then Sloane even shows up on the Nexus at the end of the game.  These are missions during the game, not ongoing, overarching themes.

If there is a next game, will these things carry over into it?  Where did Cora, Peebee, Liam stand on the these issues.  Did they care one way or the other.  Could you talk to any of them about it like you could Mordin about the Genophage, Vivienne about the circle or rogue mages.

That's really my point.

I think its difference of being front and center vs being in the a background. There are just too few things in the background for the Andromeda world to feel deep. ME had genophage, geth, turian/human war, human demand for council seat/backlash, terminus systems, cerbrus, space corporation etc ... and that's stuff in addition to the front and center issue of fight geth/saren.

In very beginning of the game, I have thought that the mutiny, the other arcs, and maybe potential civil war on the nexus would serve that purpose, but they just get resolved and explained away without taking full advantage of.