People need to stop praising ME1

- Vastly improved combat over the original, including a better difficulty curve.

- The best class balance in the series, with hybrids that don't overshadow their parent classes.

- A fantastic cast of characters, some of which stand among the best BW has ever produced.

- Some excellent individual missions.

- The Suicide Mission (not counting the last boss) which is one of the best payoffs of any game I've ever played.

On the other hand:

- A story that does little to advance the trilogy overall

- Tedious planet scanning

- Limited RPG aspects

- Fairly crappy equipment system.

For my money, the positives far, far outweighed the negatives.

That's true for me. On my initial playthrough of the game trying to explore every planet and collect all that useless crap got so frustrating and time-consuming that I almost walked away from it. I can't imagine how cold and empty my gaming life would be now if I had.

I like ME3 as well. I think ME2 was more fun. Can't really say why? Maybe the mood of ME3 detracted somewhat from the pure fun factor, but ME3 was definitely the most emotional. It's the only one that made tears come out of my eyes at points. But that emotion was earned on the back of ME2. By itself ME3, although packaged nicely, would be a empty shell. Which is why I could never consider it the best. But I can still understand why you would consider it the best.