Phil725 wrote...
*snippity*
Why do the new players matter here? They can learn the same amount of information about the characters while they're still on the team. They don't have to leave for that to happen. It would just be like ME1 where you basically start with everyone, and get to know them from there. A little more overwhelming, but its nothing that people can't handle. This does probably mean that we won't get a ton of new info on our returning characters, but hopefully we at least get something.
And I hadn't thought about an explanation for the level up system. Personally, I would prefer they just said, "Its a new game, your skills reset, deal with it." Than something idiotic like killing Shepard again. 
And for folks playing purely for the continuation of the ME2 storyline, that could work. Trick is that, even though I think they'd be the minority, they want the game to appeal to new gamers and as such everything (including storyline) has to start small and get bigger. Find more weapons, more team members, more abilities, new stuff for your room, and so on.
It's gonna start off small with some tutorial battles and then grow upward and outward from there- I guarantee it.

SPARTANMST wrote...
I think it would be cool to have all
squad members at the start of the game, maybe the 'development' of the
story could be in helping the characters with final goodbye's before the
final battle with the reapers, it would give people an insight into the
characters as well as continue the story for existing players, I think
though that the recruiting side of it will be something similar to that
of DA:O where you have to gain the support of all the major races, i.e.
get the support of citadel races, travel to the Flotilla to gain the
assistance of the Quarians (maybe a mission could be thrown in here
which involves sorting out the Geth/Quarian problem) and finally an epic
ending involving a HUGE battle wit hthe reapers against a new alliance
of all sentient life in the galaxy, with Shepard and his team
spearheading the assault, that would totally rock!
And for some reason all of the problems the individual races will be having can be solved by Shepard shooting his guns at things and ducking behind crates.

Saint Op wrote...
Ok this would suck but what if the
game start with a mission, you pick 2 team members,go on the mission and
when your gone your ship gets sucked through a relay and you have to
find it. Then when you find it, all remaining team mates are controled
by Reapers and you have to kill them all to destroy the Reapers. ../../../images/forum/emoticons/andy.png
I know this idea is bad but I would wanna play that somehow.
Picking the two that you start off with was
not something I had considered. Very interesting.... I wonder if, for people importing a ME2 file, if the 2 squaddies you start with will be determined by your actions from the previous games. Hmm...
Oh, but I don't wanna shoot at my old friends. It'd make me a sad panda.