ME2 vastly expanded the universe of mass effect from the very bare bones level of the first game. It makes the reapers into more than vague robot threat that kills the universe every so often. It established other races as more than basic caricatures. You can keep the basic narrative intact without it, but you lose the sense of payoff in 3 without seeing krogan as a dying race, geth as a sentient race that deserves equality, and the truly desperate nature of the nomadic quarians.
3 was pretty good until the final ending that was clearly rushed in establishing the full reasoning behind each choice. Yes it had multi-player tacked on, but it was clearly a rushed effort and cutting it wouldn’t have fixed the story. The multi-player is also the best coop gameplay I’ve ever played and nothing has came close to the feel. You’re problems with 3 and other Bioware releases seem directly related to the broad direction EA was forcing everyone down.
Adding minimal requirements isn’t going to block any indie game the average gamer has heard of. In fact blocking asset flip games may actually help devs get more exposure in the new release lists. Heck just banning people that upload only asset flip garbage would probably be a big help.
Then find a way to purchase or otherwise create 2 out of every 10 assets you do use. You likely need some level of customization to make your idea a reality.
The content discovery on steam is being built up by massive community effort. It’s maybe difficult to find the most egregious asset flips, but it’s trivial to find tons of rpg maker games or similar, especially with the discovery queue.
Seriously steam really needs to add a quality gate, the amount of garbage they have in the store is absurd and eventually it’s not going to be worth the tiny fee they make from these games.
Similar for me. I get maybe 2 hours on a good day that I can actually play games. I’m not wasting that grinding levels or hunting down 200 feathers. I also don’t like games that spoonfeed advancement way to slowly in the beginning, I don’t want to spend 15 hours in a game just to get to the point where the combat system is actually fleshed out fully.
It really just requires a single step of indirection. Instead of indie dev using AI directly, they pay Joe’s Asset Shack for their assets which may or may not be generated.
Pc has also become a better value proposition. You get more games, generally better pricing, great support for older games, and it can do more than games. You also get console or better performance with similarly priced hardware, or if you spend a lot you can probably get something better than next gen consoles will be.
Monster train is very good. It’s probably a bit easier than others in the genre. It’s more about how many modifiers you use to make the game more difficult than simply finishing. You can generally always beat the game on any given run, you aren’t as dependent on getting the exact right cards or unlocking more powerful cards.
I can’t speak too much to the dlc, I don’t have a ton of experience with it, but my friend has literally unlocked and completed everything and still enjoys the game.