I write this thread as someone who's finished Mass Effect 1 about ten times, and is now on his third playthrough for Mass Effect 2. Let me start with quickly summing up my main problem with Mass Effect 1:
In ME1 the game offered a solid a convincing story, from start to Ilos. Yes, to Ilos. Because Ilos is where the story falls apart due to the biggest plothole that I've encountered so far in gaming. The Conduit is simply a Citadel back door, rather than some Reaper doomsday device. This makes Saren's quest for the Conduit lose any and all meaning, since he already had access to the Citadel's systems before he lost his Spectre status. He risked everything to find something he didn't need at all, and I still can't quite get over how the writers of ME managed to overlook this.
Thankfully, Mass Effect 2 is absent of any such gaping plot holes. Obviously the question could be asked: why a Human-Reaper? What the hell's the point? Thing is that you can easily fill this in with your own imagination: perhaps the Reapers simply enjoy turning their greatest enemies into one of their own. Perhaps this human Reaper's the start of a landbased army, since the lack of one was an obvious shortcoming for them in ME1, having to rely on Saren and the Geth. I noticed many people automatically assumed that his Human-Reaper would be flying about through space with his arms stretched forward and a cape around his neck, Superman style. I find that seriously hard to believe.
But other than the Human-Reaper, which IMO really isn't a plothole at all, simply a questionable element at worst, ME2's story is rock solid from start to end. ME2 tells the story of the Reapers using their subdued Prothean minions to commence preliminary harvesting of organic life, in compensation for Sovereign's failure at the Citadel. However, nobody knows that these Collectors are Protheans in the first place, or what this harvesting is even for. Or how it can be prevented.
And there you have the key difference between ME1 and ME2. If people say that ME2 lacks a certain level of urgency, they are correct. Because ME2 is not supposed to have urgency. ME2 is about unravelling a mystery, not about preventing the Collectors from destroying all galactic life. The Collectors are -supposed- to be an ominous threat, only sporadically encountered. How strange would it be if nobody really knew what these Collectors were all about, only to have them suddenly appear all over the shop during Shepard's investigation? If we want to talk lack of urgency, then perhaps Dragon Age is a better example, where in the beginning of the game the Darkspawn are built up to be this gigantic threat to Ferelden only to barely encounter them throughout the rest of the game other than in skirmishes.
From where I stand, the Collectors make a great enemy. As the Illusive Man said about the attack on Horizon: This is the most warning we've ever gotten. If there had been more warnings, more often, then Cerberus wouldn't have needed Shepard for the job in the first place. The Alliance would've just waged war on the Collectors.
Throughout the entire game I felt like I was left with the feeling that the Collectors were plotting their next move while I was assembling my team, and that it was simply a matter of time until I ran into them again. And it was.
There is no sense of urgency because the Collectors aren't on the verge of wiping out all human life in the colonies. They've abducted many, yes, but obviously not enough for the Alliance to care yet. That's why Shepard is required to investigate. Truth be told, all the urgency you could possibly want from ME2 is masterfully delivered to you in the final 10 seconds of the game. I mean, how awesome was -that- part? My jaw dropped.
In conclusion, I think ME1's story fell seriously short. It sent you on a wild goose chase around the galaxy to find something that only lead to where your quest basically began. It made me seriously wonder what the hell the point of all the quests in between was in the first place. Mass Effect 2 is clear cut: Build a team strong enough to deal with what may lie beyond the Omega 4 relay, so that we can solve the Collector question in the absence of the Alliance. The war has died down, the threat seems to have vanished, but you know better. You -know- the end of all organic life is still impending, but it obviously isn't here yet since otherwise the Collectors wouldn't have been needed in the first place. This alone implies time and leeway. That's the setup of ME2, and it works great.
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