2 Words
Mass Effect
(I am just clumping all 3 mass effect titles into 1 now, )
We have 0 choice
Amount of Sci-fi rpgs? (Now please, don't say Dead Space is a RPG)
1 <--
Amount of Action RPG's in space with (mostly) epic story and lots of deep'ish character interaction
1 <--
Amount of decent AAA RPG's
not set in a fantasy world
1 <--
I wish it were different, but Indy devs produce sometimes interesting gameplay, but sometimes i want to get lost in an epic story, meet interesting characters and blow aliens and their space-stations up while romancing someone who can't leave her suit while also playing in an Universe that isn't entirely "out of this world". HAH. Also after my 3rd playthrough i finally understood what the Quarians represent (namely the Gypsies of the past century) And this is not just thrown "in your face" .. no, its a lot of vague clues and hints in text and dialog. Nobody openly says this in mass effect. Or maybe i am just slow..
Ain't exactly much choice on the market for that. While Mass Effect is an action game its 50% dialog. Of which 40% is interesting. Compare that to BG2 where maybe 25% was (text) dialog and large sections were essentially the same grind combat (particularly later on) and you never really had any deep connection to the game world, just to the characters.
Innovation is all good and well, but what good is the best gameplay when theres no MEAT to the game. (Meat = Graphics, Story, Sound, Music, Immersion)