Expectations for ME A

I voted Tier 1 and Tier 2, expecting it will be an excellent game that could easily become a classic, but that some people will insist on pulling apart mercilessly - digging up every little tiny flaw and making mountains out of them. With people being so critical over every minute thing that really just goes against their personal preferences, it's very likely that much of the game's WOW factor will get lost amid all the negativity and pessimism here. I don't think it's a problem restricted to this game though... people don't seem to want to allow themselves to be impressed by anything these days. Shame really.

Oh I do get impressed with games that deserve it. I won't mention any particular titles as it could drive this thread off topic. To keep things Bioware related, let's just say KotOR was a game that truly impressed me - but otherwise ther just aren't enough games that are on that level anymore.

ME2 story did not impress me, only the combat. It was off-track. ME3 was better, but had other issues. Hence I am not expecting to be impressed by the singleplayer story in MEA.

I love every BW game, even ME3 (and I did hate the endings), and even DAI, that I'm afraid that the way I talk about it sometimes it seems like I hate it My least favourite BW game is still among my favourites, and if it MEA wasn't too, I'd be very surprised. Based on that, I voted tier 1

As for what I like and what I don't, or what looks good and interesting to me and what doesn't. Starting with the good things, I'm very happy that we're going to get less loading screen (I really hate them ); I think everything looks gorgeous; I liked having more dialogue options; I like the idea of a crafting system similar to DAI; I hope it's true that side-missions are going to be more "meaty" than in DAI; the profile system is starting to sound well to me (it worried me the first time I heard about it); the big monster fights that we will encounter in every planet also seem fun; I'm ok with 3 active skills

Things I need to know more about: different personalities for Scott and Sara, which right now it's my only concern: depending on what this actually means, I can see it being something that could bother me, maybe even a lot But it might be something to which I'm actualy indifferent, can't say yet.

Things I can live with: the resource gathering, because I found it absolutely tedious in DAI, but I'm hoping it's going to be better for what I've read about it; driving the nomad; making concessions to move away from the MW

The bad thing: I don't really care for big maps (and driving around them), no matter how beatiful they are, I want less exploration and more story. I imagine/hope I will always be able to leave exploration aside if I want, so if the main story is good and the NPCs are interesting, I'll be ok. But the truth it's not the direction I'd like BW games to go.

I'm curious. What's your favorite theory?

Oh I forgot to mention the bit about the true side missions and learning from Witcher in how to do them.  Witcher is one of two games I thought that knocked side quests out of the park without squashing the story, the other was DA O.
*has a slight panic attack when he realizes he is talking to a dev. *

I had a theory that the profiles were tied to your weapon selection.  A lot like how in Dragon Age Origins you could swap out your weapon, say going from a bow and arrow to dual wielding daggers, and get a different set of powers associated for each weapon.  Which means for ME A, I thought, that you could have a Sniper Rifle equipped and have say Overload, Tac Cloak, and Remnant VI quipped, but then switch to your AR and then you can have Flak Gun, Concussive Shot, and Adrenaline Rush tied to it.  And the game would switch all the passives from one profile to the next based on which profile you assigned to which weapon.  So  in the first case have an 'Engineer' build and in the second case have more of an Infiltrator build.