Mass Effect: Andromeda - Autism reaches outer space

Music -- Sam Hulick and Jack Wall's original "Main Theme" for Mass Effect was immediately iconic. The very first time I played the game I got chills as the "Mass Effect" logo came up timed with the first crescendo. While the subsequent games lacked the depth of style present in the original soundtrack, elements of the original theme persists even in Mass Effect 3 which was composed by a different team. I mention this because the music in Andromeda is completely uninspired. Obviously we havent been exposed to the full soundtrack in just the first couple hours...but in terms of main theme and immediate hook this is just pablum trash music composed by someone who drops everything when Purina calls seeking a new Meow Mix jingle

UX / UI -- This is particularly jarring coming off playing Horizon : Zero Dawn because the UX in that game is immersive and intuitive.
Scanning -- Okay I knew this was a game all about discovery when every 6th word out of Mac's mouth at PAX was 'exploration' but shoving this Hololens like scanner is just not the right way to do it. Again going back to Horizon : Zero Dawn they have a similar ability there where you clicked R3 and went into 'focus mode' where you moved very slowly but had access to the information from your focus with a clear indication of what could be scanned and then scanning was just a matter of moving the reticle over the highlighted object. That would have been okay here as well, but instead you are stuck moving your x-ray 'scan window' all over the view hunting for things that are slightly highlighted compared to the background amber color and then you have to hit a different button to scan them. Clunky as fuck, but ultimately necessary since scanning things is how you get research points used to craft and upgrade stuff.

Combat -- Standard cover shooter combat but where entering cover seems somewhat imprecise. I also seemed to stand up and completely leave cover everytime I went to switch my weapon, but that could just be a user error on my part as i was fumbling for the unintuitive controls. The lack of the Power Wheel here made the cooldowns on the class powers seem much much longer because I was stuck with just the powers Ryder has rather than being able to use all the powers from the whole team.

Plot -- Im not going to pass judgement on this based on the snippets I've seen in the first couple of hours... but the main elements and pacing do not seem well thought out. As others have mentioned I have no idea why we went to Settlement 7 first if we also needed to go to the Nexus to process all the colonists. It seems clear that the Nexus people already have the skinny on what is going on with the Golden Worlds being kinda shit so its not like Hyperion needed to go straight to Settlement 7. I'm also not sure what the heck is up with Ryder and his/her dad. Half of the dialogue options seem to imply that I barely know the guy? Since the early access thing is timed I didnt read all the codex entries so maybe there is backstory there, but It seems just odd to jump into this character who was dragged to another galaxy with his sibling and father and have him say "eh I don't really know the guy"

Sloppy writing -- They mentioned that in the original trilogy they always wrote Shepherd as a Soldier even if your Shep had very different abilities and were hoping to correct that with Ryder. However there in the middle of the tutorial mission we have Cora protect everyone with an Asari biotic bubble (remind me again why she wasn't just an Asari?) and Liam goes "Wow your a biotic???" which is after 3-4 combat sequences where I've been tossing biotics around like mad without any comment.

Pathfinder Powers Activate -- Okay so the special nano-cybernetic fusion with SAM is why the Pathfinder is able to switch around their skills from one profile to another. I get why they included that gameplay element as a plotpoint, it was just kinda silly having Liam react to Dad Ryder vocalizing his power switches.