Is it really that bad?

I played 5 hours. The start, prologue planet, initial talkyness (I'm trying to stay away from anything remotely spoilery). I didn't start the Tempest and the bigger planet part of the trial, but I feel pretty confident I nearly completely covered everything you could do before that.

No, its not that bad.

But it nearly proves to me that I won't consider the game a 10/10. But I'm not sure if I'd even give any previous ME game a 10/10. Maybe ME2? Sorta? Bioware games never scream perfection to me, yet still get to be on my favorites list.

Of the content I did so far, it was at least a 7/10. So it was good, but not the most compelling.

There's the potential for the full game to be at least a 8/10, and that's with all warts considered.

I hope it gets that potential, but also more that really rocks my world, so I can consider it around a 9/10 and just have a blast overall.

The CC is disappointing and I want a fix and expansion to it.
The animation is in a bizarre state of sometimes better than ever, while often stuck in the past or downright gross. I'm close to insisting on a major patch that focuses just on this. It'd help the state of the game in the long run (mixed with DLC, in a collection-pack version).
The writing is... good but bad but intriguing but spotty? I could use so many words, good and bad, to describe it so far. There is potential for something I'll really love (even if I end up yawning at the structure of main plot), or it could be the most boring filler of a Bioware game in a series, ever. Characters may end up being the most generally endearing (or fascinating, etc) in a single BW game ever or in a long time, or they could be a sad attempt at doing a full-game version of Citadel DLC fanservice.

There's too much unknown, so I can just tell you, its almost certainly not what I'd ever call a 6/10 and I am very sure that I won't call it a 10/10. It'll be good to great. How great will depend on how much faults get minimized/fixed over playtime/patches, and it'll depend in how the journey progresses and ends. There's plenty of nice things to see here.


Oh and something came to mind - I like the scanner so far, and all the NPCs everywhere, and just the sense of 'place' that is happening. It may not be employed the best, but its there and it feels much expanded on from the trilogy. It makes me lament the idea of the Milky Way treatment never getting this sort of expansion.