Mass Effect: Open World Vs Linear

Without a doubt a more close map but less linear story and focus on characters, open world is great if you have money and resources to populate it with stories. If not let other do it and focus on good story telling.

I'm way more into great story, characters, and choices when it comes to rpg games. I can forgive game play if the story and the role playing choices keep me engaged. Even alpha protocol with some of the most horrendus gameplay I've ever played in a video game kept me playing because of the story.

Not an excuse for bad gameplay, but I would rather see story and rpg take priority.

This brings up a good point.  You say story and RPG, but ME2 and ME3 were barely an RPG in a sense.  Yes you make decisions in the story but everything else was bare bones.  Minimum crafting, very basic progression, not a ton of side quests to go do, no exploration, barely any collecting, barely any looting, and no reason to keep playing after you've finished the main story because there was only the main story.  

So no wide open space exploration or planet exploration?  You just want a 3rd person shooter, movie-style game?

Open world doesn't mean the game isn't linear. Open world just means that the level is big. That's all it is.

Inquisition was quite linear, Skyrim is not. That's because Skyrim is an open world sandbox. The operative word is sandbox, meaning you can pretty much do whatever you want and not be beholden to the narrative completely for progression. GTA is a sandbox due to the variety of side activities that you can do and what you can achieve without really progressing the story. MGS5 is open world, because even though there's a focus on infiltrating areas for your missions and doing them as you see fit, the bits in between those missions are quite linear.

Final Fantasy 7 with bigger hubs that you could run around in wouldn't be open world just because the hubs are bigger, nor is it open world because you could freely explore the world map; everything about that game is about getting you toward the next beat in the story. Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, and RPGs like them are pretty much a refinement of what JRPGs like FF7/FF8, Breath of Fire, Suikoden, and so on tried to achieve or spoof via their world map linked hub locations, except with better technology to make places actually the size they look in the game.

Wait for DLC? LOL actually from what we were told, the quests are nearly endless in this game, so I have a lot to do, and when the game ends new stuff opens up!

I just can't replay it. I beat it and it was fun, but I just find no point in playing it again. I still find myself playing Oblivion and Skyrim over and over again though, and love every moment of them!

I never played that game. Not my style.

Nice clarification, but there are still people who don't even care for any open world elements let alone sandbox.  The biggest issue I have is not so much of the game being a sandbox, its the idea that you couldn't revisit previous game areas or world in ME2 or ME3 because they were just scripted linear shooting experiences.  I think you should create a world/game where your locations hold more value.  You could travel back to previous areas in Final Fantasy and all of the Dark Souls games (very linear in design).  You couldn't come back to Tuchanka in ME3 like you can't revisit any areas in Uncharted 4.  It becomes a scripted movie where you make dialogue choices and cannot deviate from the path of the game to actually Role Play with your imagination  

Well they have lots of quests and you can always choose another path (not as detailed as in a BW game though) and lots of story and character development. DAI lacked life in those vast places and MEA would probably end up the same way. At least in TES you always ran into someone even when exploring. BW would need to add more of that if they want to go the open world route. It's not the idea of an open world I dislike, it's how empty they can be.

So on account that this game takes place in outer space on new worlds that are typically uninhabited but hostile, I would say a certain amount of emptiness would fit well.  Having a reason to collect things and having tons of various sized quests with a purpose in an infinitely replayable manner would fit nicely in an open world space adventure.  Would it not?  Or would you still just go for a quick awesome experience like playing an uncharted game then let it collect dust?

If there is an overabundance of meaningful side-quest throughout the map, then I would not mind it being Open World.

The backlash against Open World games is starting to grow louder every year. I was honestly sick of them by late 2015, so I'm glad to see more people are gonna fed up. That's not to say Open World is generally bad, but when all franchises start jumping on the train, it grows very tiring, because the vast majority of the content in these games, are dicking around collecting scrap, discovering codexes, revealing more of the map, and unremarkable side quests.

Again, why force structure.  It's assuming all gamers are idiots and cannot choose to follow the main story only if that's their intentions.  Leave that up to gamer instead of holding their hand.