What I Learned From the Mass Effect 3 Demo (PC)

Let's just get into this.

1. Skills and their tiers
ME3 moves from ME2's 4 tiered power choices to a 6 tiered power choice. Much like ME2, you will select one of two paths at tier 4 and will do the same thing at tiers 5 and 6. You are not restricted to one path at tier 4, but can select either option at tiers 5 and 6 like you did at 4. Like ME2, each tier costs it's tier in upgrade points. In comparison, both ME2 and ME3 have less tiers than that of ME1, but they both added some customization options that were missing from ME1.

Much like others, I assume the growth in tiers also means a higher max level than ME2, perhaps even on par with ME1.

2. Skills in ME3 are a fresh start
What I mean by this is that if you had the group Warp Ammo skill in ME2 and think you'll go into ME3 with it, you're mistaken. Same with any other skills you learned in ME2.

3. Ammo skills can still be trained for group affect
Each ammo skill has this option, typically at tier 4 like ME2. But, in ME3, the effect only imparts a 50% increase to the other group members and 100% to the character with the skill.

3. Grenades are different
In ME1, you could use grenades in a variety of ways which went missing from ME2, replaced by heavy weapons. In ME3 they return but the special function of them vary based on your class. For example, the Sentinel has a lift grenade (thanks SageHonor), which is an AE lift effect, the soldier gets a fragmentation grenade, and so on. Each grenade skill has its own 6 tiers of skills, including options to increase how many you can carry at once.

4. You are slower
Not sure why, perhaps to put more emphasis on combat gameplay from a tactical standpoint (more reliance on flanking and power use over movement in front of your opponents and to make melee a bit harder to get to). But, you can roll in a direction to go from one cover to another and close in on an opponent you may want to melee. You can still sprint, which seems to be about the same as ME2.

5. Gunplay tactics and flanking play a large role
While not pushed on the first part of the demo, which is essentially the tutorial part of the game, it was quickly made evident that combat will have a lot of focus on utilizing various obstructions and even attacking from up top or behind while your party distracts your enemies will play a big role. Especially considering the defenses being brought against you, such as shielded opponents and sentry turrets that can take a bit of time to whittle down from in front.

Furthermore, things like smoke grenades will force you out of cover since they will require you to move into a position that allows you to see, and therefore target, your opponents.

6. No more door/security hacking
At least for doors, there was no mini-games or anything. I liked the mini-games from the ME2, so I will miss these. Now, you just wait a few seconds as an animation plays out of you with your arm up and trying to open the door.

7. Items litter the battlefield
With the use of mods, need to collect credits, grenades, and med packs, it seems that a lot of this is not really in the low points of the game but actually in the areas where you are fighting. I ended up having to go through the area I just worked myself through to check for items I missed as I fought through it. Perhaps this is different in many other areas, but felt like something done to get rid of hallways and side rooms from the demo.

8. Enemies take a lot more to go down
The Cerberus and Reaper enemies I fought took more to go down than the typical ones from ME2 and ME1. This is the fodder, even. Combat felt a little longer due to this. To add onto this, heavy armored targets may be immune to some of the side effects of your powers. For example, I couldn't use my throw ability to cause a shielded or heavier armored opponents to get thrown. I think they took some damage, likely greatly reduced, but they withstood the throw itself unlike the lesser armored opponents. Again, these weren't minibosses, just regular guys you fight in any fight.

9. Power recharge times are longer.
Initially most of my powers had a 23s or so recharge time to start with. With leveling them up, I got one of them down to 15s. This is much higher than both ME1 and ME2. I'm thinking that armor and similar items will play a much larger role in getting these powers down to the 6-9s we were used to in ME1 and ME2. If not, then this shows an even larger focus on gunplay reliance in combat.

10. Some combat scenarios can be refreshed
In one instance, I was exploring the battle field instead of going for my goal and more Cerberus opponents came in. This wasn't in every instance, in fact in just this one, but it showed that sometimes you may want to rush to a goal rather than spending time looking for items you may have missed while in combat. Hopefully, this is balanced well with these instances having less items to worry about.

11. There are still 'experience' nodes.
Much like ME1 and ME2, there are nodes that can be interacted with to gain a bit of experience and to learn a bit about the current location and people. With the plan to visit a lot of alien civilizations, expect to learn a lot more from these.

12. Cover is still messed up
And even moreso now. With the use of spacebar to both roll in combat and to go into cover, the system gets even more confused now. Cover still has issues of perspective at times, unable to go into full third-person aim mode and instead sitting behind your head, when near an edge or intersection of cover areas (of which there are a lot of). And then, when you're near a wall and you want to roll forward, you may instead go into cover. The cover mechanics are still clumsy without any noticeable improvements, which is a bad thing due to the greater reliance on it in the game.

13. Mod and armor changes can't be done in the field.
Like ME2, they can only be done on the ship or a similar location, never in the field. So, if you find that new scope for your pistol or a new barrel, forget using it till you get back to the ship or similar hub area.

14. Not just long corridors, but no exploration
Areas are designed to be a bit 'wider' and 'taller', you could say to facilitate moving around in combat, including going up top to fire down on some opponents. But, there wasn't a feeling of having areas to explore in the game.

15. Opponents will move
The AI in the game has it set so that targets that rely on cover will move more often when attacked. This means you can't just sit back in one place and hope to shoot at an opponent that goes in and out of cover at the same location. You will need to be constantly moving around to get at the right angles to hit them.

16. Weapons have recoil
Unlike both ME1 and ME2, the recoil on weapons is a lot more noticeable and still includes loss of accuracy with rapid firing (widening of reticle). SMG users will need to learn to use burst firing or lose a ton of accuracy unlike in ME2. I didn't get a rapid fire pistol or assault rifle, but just firing one or two shots with what I had did result in reticle movement similar to mainstream TPSes.

17. Still doing weird things at weird times
Almost forgot this one, but you're still doing some side quests that really detract from the current emergency of the universe as you know it being destroyed by Reapers. We've seen it already, but playing through the section to rescue a female Krogan while other planets are being attacked as we speak just to get help from one of them? It just seemed a bit silly and anticlimactic, similar to dealing with daddy issues in ME2 when we're supposed to be working to take the fight to the Reapers.

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Conclusion: This demo didn't make me happy, to be honest. There was a heavy focus on combat with the gun and a bit of a surprise seeing them use so many methods to negate the skills we train to improve alongside opponents that are already defended well enough to negate much of their effect. I'm sure with the full game, which I still have on pre-order, that I will get the hang of it, but it felt like I was focusing too much on the TPS aspects than I was on my skills. I also didn't feel like the game was holding up its end of the bargain as an RPG, but the demo did cut out a lot of elements to, seemingly, focus on the gunplay.