Thanks! Good writing and lore are my primary hopes for this game, so I can live with those flaws. After reading some ME articles after your post, I got a good feeling about the game and will get it in the near future.
Have just started a fresh play through of ME1 with a male adept Shep. I only ever played the first game once and as I okay it now I realise how little of it I actually followed and understood... I blasted my way through it too so probably missed lots of side quests. Am looking forward to doing a complete run through.