Mass Effect - Reviews @ FiringSquad and CrispyGamer

A couple of fairly soft reviews for Mass Effect this time around.  First up is FiringSquad with a score of 75%:

And as much as the peppy dialogue and explosive combat liven up Mass Effect, too many dull quests and disappointing level design bog it down in tedious repetition. There are a lot of Romper Room side assignments here where you deliver junk to random aliens, push levers to activate machinery, solve dreary set puzzles, and decrypt lots of locks with a new PC-only minigame where you guide an arrow through a rotating maze. At times you seem to be jetting all over the galaxy and visiting strange new worlds just to help out strangers in bars. Most of the big-picture stuff that occurs at the end of story missions is seriously awesome, with multiple routes to the finish lines and numerous killer firefights. There is just too much busywork needed to get to these great moments.

...while CrispyGamer's Dave Long says "try it" (the medium choice in their "fry it", "try it", "buy it" system):

Guns are unimaginative slug throwers in the assault rifle, pistol, shotgun and sniper rifle mold. You won't care whether you're firing an Edge pistol or a Scimitar shotgun as long as it's got the highest number behind the name. Weapons are just a tool to get you through combat while biotic powers are a little more interesting. These allow you to briefly disable electronic foes, send others flying with a kinetic throw, or bring team members back from the brink of death. Though later confrontations are more exciting, a lot of the default difficulty combat is rather lame. You find cover, keep your team and yourself alive, aim and shoot! Babysitting your artificial intelligence partners during the fights is usually necessary, but if you outfit them well, they occasionally come in handy, and having them around makes the game seem like a less solitary experience.