There are many elements similar to Mass Effect. Colonization, selection of a crew with loyalty missions, even the dates and a certain silence.
However, when I finished TOW, my immediate, visceral reaction was “Thank goodness I’m done. Never again!”
Why?
My biggest issue was the small size of fonts in the endless amount of junk we had to read. Never before have I physically gotten tired of playing a video game. I finally had to keep zooming in with my TV remote to read stuff, most of which turned out to be useless and boring .
An English teacher friend of mine once wisely said “a mediocre story tells; a great story shows.” This was a mediocre story.
I went back and replayed Mass Effect 1 and it was so great! I cared about the characters, it was challenging, it wasFUN,!!!
TOW was addictive but not fun.
So now I’m playing Mass Effect 2 and loving it.
I probably won’t replay TOW.