Do you prefer ANDROMEDA? or Milkyway?

I prefer Milky Way. Andromeda was jumping the shark and it just doesn't feel as wonderous with how we only see 2 sentient races. I'll put it like this:

Use ME2 as a baseline for tone and art direction.
Use ME1 as a baseline for setting.
Use ME3 as a baseline for gameplay.

MEA had elements of these but mostly weaker elements minus gameplay, but aiming and impact factor were very clunky. Case in point, if I shoot a guy, he shouldn't ignore that slug and punch me in the face like he's Iron Man. He should be either dead or stunned.

So let me see, edgelord dark tone with shallow plot with too s-curved/overburned art? Hell no. ME1&MEA for art and tone. Especially ME1 70's style.
ME1 as baseline, that we can agree.
ME3 as gameplay? clunky heavy movements with wayyy too long animation delays? Nope, MEA here by far. The fluidity of the movement is on another level completely, no question about it. Or do you mean as style of hub+missions? I'd take that, with some MEA&ME1 UNC style missions in between.

Do you know what tone and art direction mean?
The design of the areas and aesthetic plus a-yes- edgier tone. Being edgy and being edgelord aren't mutually exclusive. Excuse me for not wanting a fucking nonstop hug fest with the worst parts of Marvel movie comedy arbitrarily shoved in. I want pissed off protagonists and mercs dropping f-bombs. I want gore. I want darker stories and shady underworld clubs where the wrong moves will get someone shot. I want asari badasses and independant (not autistic) squadmates.

ME1 for SETTING, which relatively includes plot. Something open yet with urgency and UNC type missions more like a mix between MEA and ME2 where they have story threads to follow (like that Hahne-Kedar facility or Contagion). Though I've never had a problem with ME2's plot I can see that it doesn't appeal to everyone. But to someone like me, "assemble the baddest and best in the galaxy to body a technologically superior enemy" catches my attention quickly.

ME3's gameplay had some better elements like the aforementioned stunning and weapon impact. Enemies actually react to getting hit and the hit effects were much better. When you set off a biotic explosion in ME3 it sounds devastating. MEA's combat areas are much better though. They can happen nearly anywhere rather than just arenas designed for shootouts. I'll also give huge props to how flamer, overload, cryo blast (beam), and pull were redesigned. Slow clunky movements? Huh? Slower than firing an Isharay? Slower than reloading a Ruzad? Gonna have to cite something my man.

That is true, but then I was never saying that the Geth or Batarians were what made ME 1 more alien either. If we were to suppose that ME 1 was the only game of the series and only compare what aliens are present in it when compared to ME:A, it still has more in that department. Even if we were to discount the more human-like species, those that are present in ME:A and the ones that weren't fully fleshed out; so the Turians, Salarians, Asari, Volus, Quarians, Batarians, Reapers, Protheans, and Geth. We are still left with the Thorian, Rachni, Elcor, and Hanar to ME:A's Angara, Khet and Remnant/Jardaan, zero of which show any non-human qualities.

Now one's mileage may vary on those four ME 1 species, they also collectively got very little screen time in the first game (as well as the trilogy), and then couple that with the realization that writing something to be truly beyond human comprehension would be impossible, but look at how much BioWare at least tried to capture that element of the non-human. This despite ME 1 being the introductory title of a brand new IP, and having to come up with everything from scratch.  

• In ME:A we get the Angara, who are simply humans by another name. Moments after making first contact and communications are established we are conversing freely with them,  they instantly have a grasp on human speech patterns; our idioms and turns of phrase don't confuse them. Their culture is also a perfect mirror to ours, since humans can be 'highly emotional' and can have large, extended families too; we also can believe in reincarnation as well. You don't encounter anything at odds with our human perceptions with the Angara; they don't do anything decidedly non-human, like say asking players to euthanize socially underdeveloped children because of the danger they pose to themselves and others like the Rachni queen did, for instance. Instead they have identical moral guidelines; us humans don't have to think twice about what is acceptable to them since it is exactly what we expect in our interactions among each other.
  
  
• The Khet are mindless monsters. Oh of course it's implied that they have a diverse military structure, and that the Khet homeworlds are far more varied than what we see in the Hellius Cluster, but we are never shown anything that disputes them as just being re-textured Collectors; minus the pre-established foundations of something like the Reapers to prop them up. The Archon is not only a horrible villain in how incompetent he is throughout the entire game, but also in how depressingly human he acts. BioWare has the Khet using exhalation like a virus to turn other aliens into Borg drones, but then turns around and fails to utilize any of that in how Khet society (what very little we can infer) operates at how 'alien' that would make their civilization. Nope, all it's used for is an excuse to fight endless waves of minions, and that it is the magical mind control serum that instantly turns NPCs evil. The Archon, the only Khet with actual "personality", comes across as a sub-par Saturday morning cartoon super villain, one even worse than Coryepheus in DA:I. And the concept of exultation, the one thing remotely approaching 'alien' in this game is criminally underutilized (i.e. not at all). 
  
  
• The Remnant/Jardaan, aside from codex entries that seem to indicate otherwise, don't speak at all. Indeed, their actual in-game representative, in the form of robotic drones, operates more like... well mindless robots, than anything 'alien'. Like some hyper advanced roomba, all the Remnant, and the Vaults do is fill a specific gameplay mechanic. At least there were little nods to the Geth operating differently than how robots should; such as their act of worshiping Sovereign as a god. All we know about the Jardaan, which again is only found in the codex entries, is that they created everything and then suddenly disappeared. So esentially a rehash of the Protheans in ME 1, except with them we at least got to speak to Vigil for a little clarification on Illos. We don't get anything like that in ME:A.

Indeed, which is why I din't include them in the list of alien aliens. 

Yes, you want that, I dont. At least if it looks like ME2 did, and I'm mainly talking about the end result in the engine which lighting was in many areas completely broken showing 8-bit colorbanding and such. Other ME games dont have this, or maybe 3 did have a bit, but they fixed most of the horror. Most of the set pieces and places use the same ME universe stuff which is fine.

For me ME1 hit the real nail in lighting and overall tone of art, thankfully MEA followed it in most places. I just wish they had continued with the same visual tone from the first through out the game.

This we can agree on, but I dont think I would necessary anymore need the "bad 12 against superior enemy" ..

I dont remember enemies reacting so much differently though and MEA biotic explosion is much better sounding (I'm a musician and sound designer ) to my ears, it plops the first transient hit so hard I though my headphones exploded the first time I heard it.

Slow movements I mean the playerchar/mp chars are all moving like on molasses and having a lead suit on compared to modern games. There is one move in MEAMP which animates as slowly as in ME3 and it is infuriating, the biotic blink. They didnt get rid of all the "wait for the animation to finish to gain control of your character" from me3... I'm not saying its bad, but its not as good as the newest incarnation.

Since I don't do quote chains and other nonsense...

It's something YOU don't like! *GASP* But I do. This thread is about what we as individuals would like. I couldn't a flying fuck about what you prefer. I'm stating MY preferences, not yours. Don't like ME2's setting? Tough shit. I loved it. It got me into the series and I look back on my first two playthroughs and still love that sense of wonder and horror about the mysteries behind the Protheans, reapers, Innusammon, and Geth.


Wanna know why I like ME2's aesthetics over ME1? Compare the Normandy of both games. Compare The Citadel to Illium. That's why. It's the beautiful asari designs and the brighter, "techier" look of the SR2.

With ME3's "slow" gameplay, I'd rather have characters that feel like they have skeletal structures and weight to them. Discounting the jetpacks, ME3 had a more impactful feel to me. I also liked having more than 4 flavors or melee with most of them being generic superman punches or haymakers. Just a single slow ass lovetap. I'll take my Kung Fury, Drell Roundhouse, Krogan Pimp Hand, Capt. AmeriPal Shield, Shadow Blade, Vorcha Beserker Barrage, Elemental Omni Tool, the REAL Batarian Falcon Punch of Hate, Biotic Billy Club, Air Turian, Teleporting Off With His Head, Destroyer Temper Tantrum, Pistol Whipping Combination, and all the other cool shit.

Really, why do you keep quoting my shit? You have your opinion, I have mine. Keep it moving.

While I do enjoy ME:A's MP and combat, I have to agree with the weight-talk of ME3. While floating about and having more freedom in ME:A is certainly nice in its own way, you never feel like you're actually, you know, in a heavy-ass space-suit and worrying about weapon-weight because, hey, weight, weight, weight, gravity, space, weight.

In ME3, yes, your footsteps were loud and plodding. Yes, movement felt that pang of hindrance, because hey, weight in space with big suits and warfare gear chafes a bit, y'know? Look at me I'm a Krogan/Geth Juggernaut - I'm 1.5 times taller than you and weigh quadruple your mass, so guess what, I'm slower but I backhand mooks so hard they rocket into space! Whoddathunkit?

The only way in which ME3's combat and movement lost points is due to the sticky cover systems all being tied to a sprint button. There's nothing more aggravating than something nasty going down in a Platinum PUG that forces a need to back off, yet your character decides that 'running away' should also involve covering themselves on walls, ducking behind desks and generally getting confused between running and 'bashing your head against everything because buttons'.

Combat powers were satisfying. I think the most satisfying thing to this day is seeing those shiny Possessed Abomination explosions going off at the hands of a tech or biotic combo - it's a spectacle in itself, and that's just a lowly mook getting killed. I adore the fire-combos and other combos here in MEA, but both have good and bad. Cryo detonations in ME3 were appropriately quick and nasty, whereas their fire-combos looked... Pitiful. Others may say MEA does X better than Y, but overall I like most combo variants across both games.

Weapons felt appropriately chunky or light in ME3, enemies reacted to force a bit better (whereas they react equally predictable in MEA, which would be a 50/50 if we weren't talking about a new game with above mentioned 'fluidity' for the hero, therefore the 'same reactions' look a bit dated here and out of place).

It's nice that ME:A has the open-world feel, hence the need for more fluidity, yet AI suffers painfully in terms of sniper/long-range weapons. Nothing more cringey when a drop-ship dumps a few Kett/Exiles or Angara at a location, you crack out a SR at max-range, snipe someone standing 1ft away from a friend and they just... Stand there waiting for their turn.

The more arena-esque setting of the older games remedies this as fights are compact, even if it'll always feel more 'railed' compared to open-world style, but overall I like the fact that they're both different beasts.

TLDR - ME3MP is still very active today, and for good reason. It's 'satisfying'. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't found a new random urge to reinstall ME3 for a dose of MP out of the blue, then decided I'd also give ME:A a retry since my first and only playthrough at release, all because ME3MP was such a horrendously addictive monster-mode for reasons I couldn't explain or justify other than being cluster-fun despite its flaws.

Meanwhile, ME:A-MP feels a lot better now than it did for me during the buggy release, but it's not even nearly as satisfying or addictive as ME3's is for many reasons.

EDIT: Naturally above is my own personal 2cents, not a matter-of-fact statement etc.

  No, just based on the running animations of MEA felt ethereal, the jet pack dodge may have enhanced that but I thought that was overall a add to the game. ME3 felt like a dude in gear with guns running and rolling around. MEA even without the jet pack the movement felt fake, jarringly so sometimes.

this is BSN, beating dead horses is a forum requirement and it is perfectly alright to beat them as much as you want too. We can't judge you for that, shit We might join you in beating the dead horse again and again.