Great start, to a special trilogy ( spoiler free )
This game is remarkable, the emphasis on story is something that i've never seen in any other game series, ever. There are many different dialouge options with every npc you encounter, and the game, and even the next games in the series can be changed with each decision. Which means nobody will have the exact same experience. For example, at a certain point of the game, you have to sacrifice one of 2 squad members, the one you save will be in the next games, and the other wont. Meaning the game changes completely. There are many decisions like this, big and small, which will definately have an effect on the game in some way.
At the begining, you have a choice between 5 different types of characters which have different abilities and specifications. You can customize your characters appearence at the beggining and as you level up you can assign points to different abilities and to your squad members aswell. You can buy different weapons, upgrades etc. But the way this game shines is not in the fighting aspects, but the story and how much your actions effect the game. The voice acting and characters are amazing, and it's truly like playing a movie, not a game. You have to play it to know what i mean.
But in this game there are many flaws. There are constantly long elevator rides that bore you to your skin. Also, there are many glitches, like game freezes, getting stuck in the enviroment, getting stuck behind cover, framerate drops. These issues occur to often to be dismissed. The vehicle controls are terrible, and the vehicles make an appearence in missions to often as the controls are the worst car controls on a game ive ever encountered. Saves may get corrupted and importing characters over to ME2 can be problomatic.
But, despite these problems, you can enjoy a very special game and look forward to the even better games that follow in this great, great trilogy.
Mass Effect: 8/10