ME1 nailing the story building but being pretty slow overall. Combat feeling very dated. (8/10 overall) ME2 nailing the combat, streamlining the overall game but sacrificing some of the exploration spirit - but very well done from a lore perspective because the urgency of the crisis builds over the game - leaving the protag less time for exploration. (10/10 overall) Then ME3... A pale imitation of ME2. From a player perspective it feels like the general storyline was still from the same author of the ME2 game, because you can see the urgency picking up more and more until the final conclusion. But the execution is really really lacklustre. (Maybe 6-7/10)
It was a decent enough conclusion, but overall pretty mid . Most definitely this was the first time you could feel the cultural shift in the production and it's impact in the product.
Political correctness kept sneaking in. The objectively horrible things you could do in both previous installments were toned down a lot. You're no longer deciding to decimate populations, shoving people out of windows etc. Still some questionable things, but clearly with a lot less ... Edge.
And I'm seriously surprised this thread considers DA:I good.
I gave it multiple attempts, and never even got further then maybe 5h before dropping it. Honestly, DA2 was already such a massive step down in vibes, clearly aimed at what's today being called "modern audiences", there were still some quiet extreme scenes in it, but it felt completely artificial to me compared to the ruthlessness in DA:O I also hated how the gameplay went from pretty down to earth to complete implausibility.
Like in DA:O people were still limited by their physical bodies. In DA2 you get rogues jumping gigantic distances etc. it felt like it took too much inspiration from MMOs at the time, sacrificing it's wonderful world it built up. But a more cynical view is probably that they just hired people that previously worked on other fantasy games, consequently importing the same fantasy settings of their previous projects.
And inquisition... Again I was unable to finish it to date because I just cannot get myself to keep playing... It's just no spirit to it at all. It'd say it's work by a amateur that's trying their best to imitate a previous work, and failing.
Part of ME3's problem was that it was left with too much to do, the Reaper invasion needs to be started and concluded in the same game when it should have been started in ME2.
ME1 the Reapers are unknown, they fight via subterfuge while utilizing the Geth and Indoctrination. Only one Reaper is in the Milky Way, and only for oversight. The game ends with the DLC in which the protagonist annihilates the main Relay which the Reapers wouldve used for their invasion.
ME2 starts with the overseeing Reaper killing the protagonist. Who is the nrebuild by a clandestine human supremacist organization. Its central theme is trying to rally a defense against the upcoming invasion. It ends with the "Suicide mission" against the overseeing Reapers base to forestall the creation of a Human Reaper. That was actually the first part where I got completely stumped back then: why does a human reaper matter?. It was a very good scene, but lore wise it was very confusing to me.
ME3 starts with the arrival of the Reapers and tells the story of their loosing battles, until the final attempt building on the previous cycles survivors magnus opus.
You could've split ME3 into two parts for sure, former being the loosing battle lines and the third one the final conclusion via the Ansible (i think thats what it was called?) - but I feel that last installment wouldve been too little content, if attempted. It wouldve been a good choice as a seperate DLC however, so that the main game ended with the discovery of the schematics and the DLC being about the final desperate struggle to get the resources before all is lost in the inevitable defeat.