Gamespot: "Playing ME:A left us conflicted"

The reporters are not living in a vacuum. They expect - or should expect - technical issues. They know which ones are the 'usual stuff' and which are not. And when I see a reporter (who more often than not are extatic and overenthusiastic about AAA titles) giving a mixed opinion and predicting 'a rocky start' I'm alarmed.

Not really, reporters generally report even expected technical and performance issues.

Check out the IGN Preview when they talk about the technical issues

The general consensus they come to is that, while the game obviously wasn't perfectly polished when they played it, it's certainly not in a place where it can't be fixed. They basically said that they've seen other games in a similar situation that turned out fine on launch, so i'm not sure that it's fair to say that the previewer is "predicting a rocky start". Personally, I'm in the cautiously optimistic camp, as I haven't seen much thus far that really causes me that much alarm.

Sounds like Smudboys videos comment box, lol. Would fit in there perfectly.

I can respect that.

It's worth pointing out that apparently all of the journalists were playing the game at 4K on high-end PCs. I have no idea what graphics card was loaded into the machines, but it would explain the dips in framerate. If that is the case, then performance is likely not going to be an issue, as PC gamers largely are still gaming at 1080p. We obviously haven't seen any of the console versions, besides the one tech demo of Mass Effect Andromeda on the Pro many moons ago.

To me:
The Mako in ME1 was brilliant, even if most people hated it
In all ME games the conversations, no matter where or for what quest/purpose, were cinematic.
The time I spent fighting was about the same time I spent in dialogues.
There is no Loot in ME games, only unlocks for weapons. With the introduction of crafting, I am afraid we get a limited inventory space forcing you to travel forth and back unloading.
Everything you did was to either shape your character into good/evil (paragon/renegade) or progress the story. I like it when every answer you give or action you take is important.

It does, if you wanna be anal about it. It's also that reductio ad absurdum Harry Potter spell fallacy but w/e.

Point is, if you wanna (1) draw broad comparisons between salient bits of games (2) by the same developer in the (3) same genre when the person who brought this up in the first place emphasized that he found it (4i) absurd, but that he (4ii) simultaneously thought different people would draw different things from it ([4iii]but comparisons were specifically bad) you're not making much sense.

I want to be optimistic, I really do. I'm hyped for the game and I want to love it.
I'm just really worried about facial animations. I don't think there's time to improve them, and maybe it's not even a big deal, but it kinda breaks immersion for me.

"Oh muh endings dur hur"

If that was actually the reason.

I honestly believe Gamestop's "preview" of MEA was click bait. 90% of the video was positive. He only criticized a lack of polish and then made an unsubstantiated claim that the game "feels like DAI," yet everything he complimented the game for couldn't have been further from DAI.

I don't really even understand what they mean when they say it "feels like DAI".
It would have been nice for a little explanation. From everything we've seen, it looks a lot like Mass Effect, only faster paced (if you choose to play it that way).

It really looks like ME3's gameplay only improved. And I am all for exploration, scanning, crafting and driving the Nomad!
From everything I've seen, I felt impressed by this. The ONLY thing I would nitpick about, is the facial animations. But even then, I've played much buggier games. Skyrim on the Xbox 360 had some bad lip-sync at times. But hey, I loved that game!

But I'll be picking this up anyway, then I can judge it. I am a fairly optimistic person, so I still have high hopes for this.
BioWare hasn't ever really let me down, yet. Even if there were things in DAI that felt tedious, I enjoyed the majority of the game. So if this ends up being "DAI in Space", then bring it on! I loved DAI, and I already have visual proof that the combat still looks like ME. And that's all I needed to know.