They loved their Ryders!

Compared to what kids now a days can be exposed to MEA is pretty tame. I started my son off with the OT at 11...kind of playing through side by side. I used videogames as a tool to maintain an open dialogue and to segue into broader discussions. It was a successful strategy for myself but comes down to whether parents have firsthand knowledge of what their kids are processing...and whether they're available to help them process through the information.

MEA it seems was aimed at a different generation of gamer compared to the trilogy. MEA was focused more on open world, combat, and world building and less on story, characters, and dialog. Many of today's gamer wants a simple or no story, characters don't matter a whole lot, and dialog is nice, but the less they have to read the better. They care more about the pew pew and being able to play with friends than anything else. On that front, MEA delivered.

Mass Effect's always had a simple story, albeit one that went off the rails in the end, but how much characters matter is really down to personal preference. There's still a fair amount of content for each follower, and there's actually quite a bit of dialogue, if you choose to explore it.

If you're looking primarily for combat and multiplayer, I'm not sure why MEA would even really qualify. MP is more or less tacked on, like it is with ME3. There aren't a lot of modes, just enemy types and difficulty levels. A player looking for beefier MP would be better off going with a game that focuses more on that entirely.