CarrionCrow: Yes, the Mako is absolute garbage, to the point that I have to question both the sanity and sobriety of anyone involved with its design.
2 and 3 are definitely more geared towards shooting. They still have RPG elements, but the guts of them feel like they were added to draw more people to the games.
ElTerprise: Yeah. Mako was the of it. I think i had to fight some creature on a planet with it and it was awful...after that i stopped playing....
But playing it again is not on my high priority list...
I loved Mass Effect - especially the writing of the characters. But the mission with the Thresher Maw made my quit the game for months before I tried it again. Surprisingly it worked out after that hiatus.
I'm playing ME2 at the moment - the skill system is much simpler, but to me it's still roleplay - there's a lot of talk to do, even if the fights are much more shooter-like.
And as ME is the first Bioware series I've played, I admit that others might be written better - but this one is really excellent to me in terms of storytelling.