I'm not the big strategic so I almost never commanded my comrades to do anything but revive them when they died or ordered them to attack a specific enemy when they seemed like they weren't responding. They weren't good at attacking the enemy. I didn't find such problems in Mass Effect 2. Sometimes they got killed due to not knowing how to take cover. If you want something done, gotta do it yourself. Almost ended up having to take care of the enemy myself.
Also, conversations between my men was a nice chance. I don't think that was in ME2 either.
I do like the combat system better in Mass Effect 2, it felt very limited going from ME2 to ME1. Like Bioware has refined it. I also liked that you could jump over obstacles in ME2 when you had been covering against it. But it grew on me, and I finished the game in 20 hours, I think. I do think ME1 had a bad start due to my great experience of playing ME2. Pretty disappointing you can't continue to play after you finish the game, you could do that in ME2, right? I still got missions to do.
Something I enjoyed was the role-playing element where you assign specific weapons to your men. In ME2 it was just a few weapons like blubart mentioned, and I honestly didn't feel a big difference, not enough to care anyway. There was weapons which worked best for shields and some for organic lifeforms, but as I said, not enough difference to care. Also, please add a "calmer button" for ME3, it was pretty frustrating to pull out the sniper and just waiting for the crosshair to flow over the target. I ended up using my assault rifle the most until it magically overheated during my battle with Saren. Damn, he was annoying in the final battle, only needed two tries to take him down though.
The level up system was okay. Only a few things I cared about, the Intimidate, and Social abilities. Also, each character's individual powers. I think Wrex' was called Krogan Battlemaster. Regarding my teammates I went for a balance in the three values. Almost always picked Liara and Tali. Although I do like my MAN team consiting of Wrex and Garrus. "Let's go, guys.
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Hitting 150 items and having to convert stuff to Omni-gel was pretty annoying, especially since you got 150 items again very fast. Then again, I don't remember having a shortage of ammo so it's not something I really noticed. I do enjoy reloading, but the overheating was a pretty nice implement in ME1.
But searching through your weapons and seeing that there's one where it's all yellow was pretty exiting. I like situations where you prepare yourself for an enemy, and use a good amount of time to pick the best set-up. It reminds me of Final Fantasy, especially IX which I've been playing where there's a good amount of stuff you can pick for the coming battle. VII too, although VIII is very limited.
Also, a much more engaging story for ME1 than ME2, having a villain really helped the story. Hopefully, they'll go back to basics while picking the best stuff from ME2.
