@darkboy1200: ME2 sidequests were good. They were fewer, but much better and more varied.

@Archaotic: That doesn't make it canon, that just means that's the story they filled in for you if you didn't play the first one.

@hagren: Well there were side-quests too right? Like the crime syndicate one and stuff. Even those are just too boring to bother with.

@taminosk: The story doesn't change based on difficulty, only the combat does. So if the higher difficulty combat is time-consuming and not fun and you're only in it for the story. . . why don't you just. . . like. . . not jack the difficulty up so much?

@Cookie: Child of the corn: I think by "retired" he means **spoiler**"shot dead on Virmire." **spoiler**

@Archaotic: Mass Effect is a true RPG. There is no canon. That's the point of carrying over your saves.

@The_Foo: It's like Aria said. It's hard to go back once you get used to the benefits of working with Asari. . .

@darkboy1200: Why not just let you click "Scan" and get resources? I don't get the need to add pointless minigames to pad game time. Better than the Mako missions but still. Having to do these pointless sidequests is fine for the one playthrough, but after you do it once it REALLY grates on you to have to do it again…

@Azhrarn: **Spoiler** I bet Liara will be debriefing you on some missions in ME3.**/Spoiler**

@theotherwhiteboy: I'm doing another playthrough now and I did Kasumi's thing as soon as I could.

@JCDenton: "Then we do it the hard way" *cracks knuckles.*

@crosis101: Well, not forever. The Reapers build the Mass Relays to control where and how civilizations expand. The Reapers can hide in Dark Space precisely because they've guided our technological development in such a way that you would be unlikely to find them.

@Kaiser-Machead v.2.1.2: I'm curious as to how you miss a train. Aside from jackhammers, airplanes, and helicopters they are the loudest thing I hear on a typical day. Even with my music on and my in-ear noise isolating headphones in I know when a train is coming.

@corpore-metal: In terms of cool ideas, I've actually enjoyed Mass Effect's treatment of the various alien cultures and how the interact. It's one of the most humanistic (semi-)hard sci-fi stories I've seen.

@QuatlooMillionaire: Religion's place in society. The ways in which men and women are different (see Lawrence Summers at Harvard). The long-term viability and desirability of cosmopolitanism. And that's just off the top of my head. I distinctly remember the shit-storm one professor of human sexuality in my university…

@Rasselas: Yes. YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!

@Nethlem: They don't want people growing up thinking this stuff is supposed to be free is the problem. Once you get into the habit of not paying for something, you're going to resent ever having to pay for it. That damages them over the long-term.

@arionfrost: Piracy rates are substantially lower on consoles. This is just a fact.

@HitBit: I remember the first PC Street Fighter (Super Street Fighter II Championship Edition I think) game I ever bought had worse DRM than anything Ubisoft has ever done.

@Truk: I just couldn't take the time to learn how to play. It's less a learning curve and more a learning brick wall that only Altair can scale.