Article: ME1 has aged worse than MEA

Dead accurate. ME1 spawned two more games. It also had two DLC, even if they weren't extensive. MEA got nothing and I think it hurt the game even more for having one DLC become a novel and other major subplots completely abandoned. It's hard to believe anyone could trust BioWare to do right by anything Andromeda-related.

That's very clear. If the dialogue matched the chosen lines then it would have made much more sense. Imagine is Shepard outright said, "I hate these guys and everything they stand for. The problem is that the Alliance ignores me and the Council said it's outside of their jurisdiction. Should I ignore the Collectors? Or should I make a temporary alliance with Cerberus? I'd feel a lot safer having to work with them if you had my back." Lengthy, yes, but it could be reworded to get the point across. If we still couldn't get A/K, have them say "I understand. I'll do what I can to help you from my side.

Equally stupid is that A/K was given no information by the time ME3 rolled around. Anderson, who had contact with Shepard, really couldn't have told A/K that Shepard is not and was never a traitor? He wouldn't have to give details but that should have been sufficient to put the mind of A/K at ease and avoid the stuff on Mars and, especially, when the new human Spectre was trying to protect the Council. Bad bad bad writing.

Imagine if Shepard gave a more in-your-face response?

There is 3 times in the trilogy where A/K and Shepard have bad writing moments.

The first one will be Dumb vs Dumber Part One
On Horizon, A/K turn stupid when hearing the word Cerberus ignoring the fact that colonists have been taken by the collectors who are not Cerberus. Shepard responds with a lame excuse at best.
Shepard: WHAT? CALL ME A TRAITOR? (Shepard smacks A/K with an uppercut to the head knocking A/K to the ground, then slams his/her knee into A/K's sterum) Listen up you piece of crap. You want to talk about traitors? Lets take a look at the circus of clowns you call Alliance. I was at the sight where the SR1 remains are. I gathered dogtags from the fallen. I found my helmet at the sight. Obviously someone found my body. What did your circus find? ****. Because they made no attempt to locating the crash site. And according to king clown Anderscum, they thought I was dead without making any effort to confirm my death. I'm working with, note the word with, not for, Cerberus to stop the collectors. They have given me resources and a ship. Would your circus have done that? One last thing. That king clown Anderscum also told me it was up to me to find a way to stop the reapers. He never cared, the rest of the circus of clowns never cared. As far as I'm concerned, **** off. Now, go back and tell that to your precious circus of clowns.

On Mars, there's another bad writing scenario. This is known as Dumb vs Dumber Part 2
Once inside the building, A/K get all huffy-puffy asking why Cerberus is there. At best, Shepard can have a....harsh, if one wants to call it that, response.
Shepard: Not this crap again. Listen up dumba**. I've been locked up for 6 months doing nothing. Why didn't you come by to see me? You get a promotion, for whatever reason, without me knowing until a short time ago. You can ask meathead here that I had no contact with Cerberus or anyone in the last 6 months. And you know what? Your circus of clowns didn't do anything to finding a way to stop the reapers. Even the king clown Anderscum said for me to find a way to help them stop the reapers after he told me it's up to me to find a way to stop the reapers when I was dealing with the collectors. As a suggestions. Think before you say something. Otherwise I will use my needle and thread to sew your mouth shut.

To the final writing of bad, Dumb vs Dumber Part 3
The coup. The whole mission was crap.
The standoff between A/K and Shepard was, yeah, sure, whatever. I understand A/K pointing their weapon at Shepard at the beginning, but after a couple of seconds it wasn't necessary. At the same time, I would have Shepard lower their weapon right away since there was no threat. Udina mentioning Shepard is working with Cerberus should have set off alarm bells in their head.
Shepard: If I were working with Cerberus, then why are both squadmates with me? On Mars they attacked for no reason. I have been gathering resources to help build a device to stop the reapers. And unless you're Clint Eastwood, you are outgunned. Shoot me, one of the squadmates would shoot you. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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I get the feeling MEA will feel more dated in 2027 than ME1 did when it was 10 years old. Though there are a lot of dated aspects in ME1, it still does far more right than MEA did right with better technology and hardware. The only positive of MEA is Cora to me. Its nice to have a kind, calm, and professional love interest that is mostly drama free.

I also agree with Ash/Kaidan stuff. They had a lot of bad writing throughout. Most of it just existed for contrived drama. It's weird they wrote them like this but characters like Garrus and Liara are so amiable. This continues into ME3. At the very least, Kaidan is improved as a character into ME3 where as Ash felt useless all around.

I think most players do.  The article to me screamed "This is about BioWare click me... click me." I have a very low opinion on places like The Escapist because they seem to make articles to create some buzz so people will go there and click on the articles and comment about it.  Its one of the biggest reasons why I stopped visiting it years ago and then shortly after they relaunched.