Lots of gameplay, forget the problems.
If you are debating between this and halo 3 or some other big title this holiday season i would recommend this game. While this game had a much shorter story i felt than KOTR, the original concepts presented in Mass Effect were amazingly believable followed by many galaxies and side missions to explore. The graphics stutter to load at times but it does not freeze. Although i wont ruin the ending for anyone i think this game's ending is somewhat lacking but it is good to see a sequel is in production. You can go through the game many times and say to yourself "Well damn i missed that completely last time". The combat isn't as exciting and fluid as they had hoped but for whatever reason it didn't matter.
The side missions and if you ever go to your friend's house or watch a friend play you will probably find yourself saying on one play through "Why the hell did you do that" or in my case "You missed the prototype Spectre weapons!?!" but nevertheless playing through it the second time allows you to do what before you were unable to before. I thought at first when they said to play through the game on hardcore it was going to be some stupid ass rip off where all the enemies were just stronger but i found myself actually using the cover system and being much more strategic.
Id like to finish by saying i am once again disappointed with Gamespot simply because of their lackluster review. They hope they will get more acknowledgment as a main stream group of reviewers if they give big titles bad reviews. Games should be rated on the amount of fun had upon FINISHING THE GAME not just screwing around for 30 minutes.