Oufh I'm late to the party. I wasn't a big fan of Eric Lang's Ankh but this is a different game so I'll be watching. A crashed research ship sounds very limiting for what the ME universe has offered otherwise? I backed Rogue Angels a few months ago and it definitely sold the Shepard and crew vibe much more. Rogue Angels has grand sci-fi drama written all over it (1000!! pages!).
Gloomhaven was quite successful on Steam if I recall correctly. Hopefully this developer would be up for taking on many more board game to video game conversions.
Perhaps Stars of Akaios, Cry Havoc and Rogue Angels? Stars would be very much like Gloomhaven, just with space ships, Cry Havoc could be almost first person like, and Rogue Angels would be a AA-descendant of Mass Effect.
Flying_Penguin's comments