Well it's an RPG, if your a shooter fan your not going to enjoy the first game all that much because it's far more of an RPG. Pretty much a reversal of the sentiments and in who liked "Mass Effect 2". ME2 was loved by shooter fans, and not well received by RPG fans.
Please note that people who enjoy a good story liked both, RPG has more to do with how the game is played than any kind of story elements. If you hate stats, menus, and similar things, and want the control of the game to depends on you, then your not an RPG fan by definition.
That said, how hard the combat is in Mass Effect 1 depends a lot on how you use your skill points and how you play the character your using. If you don't learn the system, it can be brutal for a long time. I think one big problem is that people just figure "drrrr I'll put all my points into a weapon skill" and then find that this approach really doesn't work. Neglecting weapon accuracy in favor of damage is another big problem, with people thinking they can compensate through their own aiming, and the game doesn't work that way, with shooter fans who don't get it slamming their foreheads into walls because they feel they had a guy "dead to rights" by lining up their targeting sight, but alas their character wasn't able to make the shot.
