The primary plot constituted a total of three brief missions before the last, with the majority of the game being side quests for your NPC's. The side quests were very well crafted, but that doesn't excuse a flimsy main quest. It is similar to Oblivion in that manner.

On the upside, the combat mechanics are greatly improved over the original and much more enjoyable. Unfortunately too many RPG elements (stat crunching, equipment) were omitted for no good reason as far as I could tell that would not necessarily have negatively impacted gameplay. Most of the armor is useless as the bonuses they provide are statistically insignificant and the bonus pre-order items are all equally useless.

While the game is harder than the first Mass Effect where insanity was a cakewalk with several builds, the game is still very easy. I beat the game twice already, first on normal and then on insanity with two characters imported from the first mass effect. On the insanity run, there were only a total of two locations where I had to reload more than once, the optional side quest against 3 simultaneous YMIR heavy mechs and the Horizon mission where you face off against a Harbinger and Scion.

All of the major "boss" battles were simple due to the cover mechanic and easy to recognize patterns. I just beat my insanity run yesterday and I was able to blitz the last mission without dieing once or even bothering to quick save. The final boss is really kind of a joke as you can kill him easily enough without even being hit by him once.

That said, if anyone here has any difficulty, I'll offer some useful tips.