Mass Effect 2, in my opinion, takes what is great about the first game and gives it steroids. It's a huge step up from an already amazing title and really shoots for the stars. (teehee) Everything just runs smoother, plays better, and you're given a huge squad of characters to befriend; some old, most new.

The combat has been changed, now instead of overheat mechanics, there is ammo collection just like in most shooters which I kind of despise. However, the enemies are buffed to certain degrees that entices you to use yours and your squamate's powers much more often. There are some enemies that are hard to kill without someone's specific skills if you don't have them yourself, and it adds a little bit of strategy into the bigger fights.

ME1 already had interesting dialogue choices, but they felt very unsubtlety good guy/bad guy in their morality. Here, it's moreso the same, but the conversations are more organic and you get to spend way more time with your crew that could lead to actual consequences down the line. There is much more space deducing you gotta do here and the mysteries are still abound. The cast of characters are still a mixed bag of basic to your favorite character, but there is a lot to go around. Every one of them has their own little side story that is unique to them and adds much more unique gameplay that you may not have expected. Those are definitely some of my favorite parts of the whole series.

This game is bananas from start to finish and it's fun as hell the whole way.

Edit: Used to be a 4.5 star rating, but I stopped doing halfsies.