Really? Why? I actually played KotOR 2 first, and 1 second, which did spoil the big reveal (on the upside it does more to establish Revan's character, so that it means more when you're playing him/her in the first game), but regardless, I still think the second is at least as good as the first... Kreia is a great character, too complex for the usual "good guy/bad guy" distinction, and the rest of the plot, while perhaps a bit too derivative of the first game, is definitely not worse?

I've gotten to all of Bioware's games late really, even Baldur's Gate, which means that for the past four or five years I've really played their games (okay, counting KotOR 2 and all of NWN 2 as their games) almost to the exclusion of nearly anything else...

Yeah, that's one example. It even extends to the city, though. It makes Kirkwall feel alive, makes you feel the spirit of the city so to speak, more than most other places in RPGs. So in a way I think it's sad they went to something supposedly Skyrim-inspired for DA: Inquisition. For all DA2's obvious flaws and arguably even less interesting plot, I'd say I'm more tempted to replay it than DA1, so they must have done some things right.

Yeah - I'm not sure if game makers just generally assume that the default gamer starts out with a "good" character, or if it's genuinely that hard to provide an "evil" character the same level of depth in quests. It's definitely better in that sense to have a less black/white morality system, where the "evil" choice is not evil so much as looked at from a different perspective, as in ME.

I now restarted ME1 with a male character, aiming more for the Renegade side. Oddly, though, it seems if you play mostly Renegade while avoiding extreme cruelty, you can end up fully Renegade but with still more than half of the Paragon score (enough for a lot of Paragon convince options), as there is a handful of quests that will give you tons of Paragon points almost inevitably (for instance when eliminating obstacles for your allies on Virmire - there's no possibility to get equivalent Renegade points, or any sensible reason not to do it). Not sure if that trend carries on in the later games.

Yeah... in fairness, Ashley really doesn't seem like the bisexual type, it does make more sense for Kaidan. Regardless, it is pretty cool that they went to the effort of giving both characters their arc in ME3 even though it takes multiple playthroughs to experience both (multiple playthroughs of the trilogy, really, if you don't want to take shortcuts).