Nothing could have followed up and be better than or even match the Mass Effect trilogy. Andromeda attempts to be its own thing and I respect the evolution of a franchise over time. I’m not saying Andromeda was perfect, but only that it’s good enough. It’s a good way to waste time even if it isn’t a 100% good waste of time.
I thought the story was great. It started slow but really picked up in the second half. And the gameplay really reinforced the idea of exploring a new galaxy by having the Mako driving around interestingly designed planets, instead of the boring procedureally generated ones in ME1. The only thing weird about the gameplay was having a jump button but I got used to it pretty quick.
Andromeda was a good game after they fixed all the bugs. All they have to do is launch it in a playable state, which is nearly impossible for modern devs
Halo Infinite has free multiplayer that is cross-platform between PC and Xbox, and works on the Steam Deck. There are lots of competitive and co-op modes available, both in official playlists and community made Forge modes.
You can make private matches until you’re comfortable joining public ones.
The campaign is also online co-op, but must be paid for.