Most issues present in the trial are also present in the actual game, but that doesn't tell the whole story. In terms of overall gameplay, Mass Effect: Andromeda is by far the best in the series, offering greater variety than the others in terms of character progression, crafting, research and loot.
I finished a full play and overall it's an opinion I understand, on many gameplay aspects and not only those you list (but Im' not sure I agree for character building), MEA is clearly overall superior. To those you listed (but character building) I would add exploration and progression tricks, tiny tricks solving and puzzling, collecting and spotting/finding stuff, equipments which includes weapons diversity.
But a gameplay is a whole and the whole is rarely working as well than ME3 or ME2.
A good example is exploration, overall it is hugely superior than all previous ME including ME1, but it's not working that well that often. For example the first two buggy planets (Eos and Voeld):
- Don't have enough good stories,
- they have too few good puzzles and other puzzling aren't much fun quickly,
- the exploration gameplay based on vehicle use generates a gameplay lacking of fluidity making combats areas feeling artificial and not well merged to exploration,
- the game totally failed implement an impressive faun as did DAI,
- those first two planets based on desert design don't feel repetitive but the repetition coming from desert result in an exploration lacking of touristic woo,
- and so on.
And the sum is exploration of Eos and Voeld is pleasant but too rarely very fun. The other planets are working a bit better overall but it's the general idea, the exploration as a whole is pleasant, sometimes great but too rarely.
At reverse a game as ME3 has very rarely a good exploration design, and most often it's not much exploration, but the few it has is working a lot better.
Another key aspect is companions. In MEA most have good to great quests, and most have a good development and I even noticed many had their light touching moments. But overall it's just less strong, less interesting than most companions of ME3 and I don't mention ME2 which is above, but it is focused on companions.
For combats the topic is more complex. I would say ME3 has superior combats, but I agree it's a different design approach. Both ME2 and ME3 have a similar design approach of combats, ME3 just does it better. But both use combats with more design and less purely based on AI and some random. In MEA the AI dynamic plus the high mobility and complexity of terrain structures generate combats varying a lot. But at end they don't benefit of the same diversity of design than there's in ME2&3. I'd say I could have the best combats among some of MEA, and that I never really get bored by MEA combats kowing that I skipped most trash combats. But at end I didn't get the same diversity. I prefer MEA combats style, but I prefer ME2&3 sum of combats.
For me all the games of the series are too different to compare them well. But as a global feeling I have my opinion and I'd say ME3 > ME2 > MEA > ME1. But still, for ME5, I'd wish that it is with a design starting from MEA in hope the whole is improved in comparison with MEA.
