I'm having a tough time choosing between Engineer and Soldier... choices, choices...

Soldier is too easy imo. I'm going with Vanguard.

adept or sentinel for me.

i did my first playthrough as a soldier and i felt that playing that way the game feels less like an rpg.

I like the changes. And feel they DID make them more unique. That is why you are having trouble fitting them into existing classes from the first game. You own comment attests to the more unique nature of the classes.

no it doesn't, they dumbed the classes down for ME2, there are half the number of skills, and even with that over-simplification the classes are still unclear, in the first game, the classes and cross classes were clearly defined by their skills, it's not like that with this game, and i'm not convinced it is a good thing. Because not only are there less skills, but the skills that there are no longer boost other skills via passive bonuses, so you really only have 5 or 6 skill trees, each some of which you may not want, but in the first game you could pump those skills for the passive bonuses anyway. There is a lot less choice in this game. Even reviewers that game the game 9/10 clearly said the leveling system was dumbed down

Sure I can see your point. I still think the classes are more unique in this game due to the class specific abilities, I feel that these will lead to larger differences in PLAYSTYLE (hence uniqueness of classes) than were possible in the original.
However, one thing that bothered me while playing any class but the soldier in ME1 was that I had to bring up the wheel of choice every time I wanted to use a new ability. (well the soldier was the same I suppose but for some reason changing weapons with the wheel seemed less intrusive) Doing this on the 360 was at times less than smooth. With less skills they seem to have improved the gameplay. I can see your trepidation though as the dumbing down of Deus Ex in DX2 was very unwelcome, and the games are comparable in that they are both rpg shooters. Overall I see these changes as improvements. Here's hoping, as ME1 for me was awesome with poor gameplay. It looks to me like this game has rectified that problem

They lost too much talent.

some in andromeda are decent, I agree with peebee and Vetra being good companions. Except Liam he's trash tier

Loved Alpha Protocol in all it's glorious jank. Great game.