I liked Mass Effect 1 enough to play 2, which is honesly the best thing about it.

The companions are very weak, even fan favourite Garrus i find kind of bland here. But i think it had to do a lot of heavy lifting in setting up the galaxy and key players, so i can forgive the watering down of characters here.
What i cant forgive is the godawful ammo system and overall bad combat. Feels like a flash game its truly spectacularly awful.

My real hater takes are Wrex Liara and Tali are horrible companions, Ashley is superracist and terrible and Kaidan is competent and bland, so theres not really anyone outside of Garrus who i like seeing in later entries in the franchise.