Originally Posted by
Wraith
It's a bit shootery. More so than the first. You can pause the game to issue orders and such, but if you play like I did you probably won't be doing it that often. It's still a great game. It's the middle part of a trilogy though, so it might not be a terrible idea to pick up the first at a discount, just so that when you play the second it's your choices you're actually seeing impact the game, instead of some Bioware guy's. They do a fairly good introduction to catch you up on what you missed, but you'll still lose the coolness of seeing all your choices from the first game change the universe in the second.
Don't go in expecting a futuristic Dragon Age, though. Mass effect is a very different beast.