pandion40

I believe I'm just over half way through, and I just picked up Tali. You get told to contact the Quarian fleet. You can't get her any earlier. Only done one mission with her but the early signs are good. She is my LI though so you may get different dialogue if you chose someone else.

Not sure about the comparison to DA2 as I struggled with the first one so never played it. But the overall impression I get is that most people loved most of the game except for the last 10 minuets. It has its problems. Liara is really pushed as a love interest which was a pain for me as I am not keen on her. Some people felt the ME2 squad was short changed as they aren't squad members. But I loved both Thanes and Jacks scenes. quality over quantity I guess. They are all I have seen so far. Guess it depends on what you like about the games. for me it has been mostly about the characters. I loved the scenes where you are meeting old friends again as your squad mates pipe up allot more than they did in the other games. Wrex and Garrus together stand out here for me. But then i always found Garrus pretty awesome.

A good article explaining some of the hatred for the endings for thoes who are interested. gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/ Obviously its full of spoilers.

It does open up later. After you rescue the Turian general I think. You gain access to the Presidium commons a night club and a refugee Camp. Spoiler Warning! The following content is NOT WORK SAFE. Click the Show button to reveal. Kelly Chambers, from ME2, is in the refugee camp. you need to tell her to change her name or something unfortunate happens to her You can only get rid of the medigel after the citadel opens up. there will be a new female doctor in the 1st room of the hospital. A tip is to bring up the map and then you can scroll through all the areas on the citadel and it will tell you where people are. Of course once the citadel opens up you start picking up more assorted crap that you can't get rid of until another event happens at the citadel. You can also lose missions by not doing them in the right order. I have read that only the Priority missions advance the story so as long as you do everything available before you do them you should not miss anything. Its worked for me so far. Go here for a list of all the missions for all Mass Effect games. scroll down for ME3 masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Missions And yes as Glass Kop says there is a real shit storm going on at the official forums over the endings.