I'll keep this short, since it's only an expansion to Origins and not a completely new game.

I had the profound feeling that the designers involved with this one are not the guys responsible for Origins. In fact It felt much closer to the style of Mass Effect 2. The story and the campaign is very similar to that one. In terms of the main storyline being in the background, and you're focused on recruiting and side missions. And these side missions are much more complex than anything in origins. The schema is almost the same as in Mass Effect 2, you recruit squad members, and do "loyalty" and side missions, and you upgrade your fortress, for the final confrontation. And the main story barely moves forward during this.

The whole game feels like if a much better design and test team had worked on it, than on origins. The difficulty problems are a thing of the past, there are no longer impossible fights that you can only win with a shitload of luck. The maps are much better as well. I half expected to see a lot of copy pasted material in it, but to my surprise there is a lot of new original content, and the level design is better as well.

If Origins were anything close to Awakening, then it could've stepped out of Mass Effect's shadow. But since this is marketed as an expansion, mostly only the people thrilled with origins bought this, so it doesn't expand on the fanbase much. It's rare when an expansion is as good as or better then the original game, but in this case it's a huge improvement.

+

  • Atmosphere
  • Story
  • Characters
  • Graphics
  • The most annoying gameplay problems of Origins were rectified.  


-

  • Your character is still mute  



graphics/realization: 8/10
story/atmosphere: 9/10
gameplay/controls: 7/10

overall: 8/10