I'm honestly not sure.
I do feel like the second game was the weakest of the series in terms of story; and it could have laid foundations for a lot of ME3. But... They released DLC when they HAD to know where the third game was going, right? They could have had hints and clues in there, but as far as I've noticed, they didn't.
I've tried replaying the entire series since getting ME3, and even though I managed to replay ME1- including all those damn side quests and Mako missions- I couldn't bring myself to trawl through ME2 again; and ended up just replaying the intro, Horizon, the suicide mission and the DLC.
I'm in agreement that it doesn't feel like a very good middle-of-a-trilogy- they introduce a new enemy, but then it's totally resolved and removed in a way that doesn't really draw the player or Shepard in emotionally and doesn't leave any sort of lasting effect beyond "this enemy is no longer relevant". The squadmates are varied and interesting; but packing in so many of them leaves a few of them rather lacking in how much you can interact with them, making the primary strength of the game (IMO) feeling very watered down and weak.
(By the way, Garrus has THREE on-ship conversations; four if romanced. One of- if not the- most popular squadmates of the trilogy, and probably one of the earliest recruited, has THREE conversations, all of which are "standard"- a "welcome aboard" conversation, a "I need your help" pre-loyalty mission conversation, and a "thanks for the help" post-loyalty mission conversation. That's pretty shameful.)
The DLC has greater strengths; it does provide hints of what may happen in ME3. Arrival being the biggest one; but even Overlord could be argued to pointing towards the organic/synthetic fusion into a dangerous AI. That could have been worked into a great hint at the Catalyst, or at the very least the Reapers themselves- or the fact that Shepard's cybernetics are overridden could have been taken further and potentially been an interesting plot. Overlord feels like a huge wasted opportunity to me in hindsight. (At the time, it just seemed rather blah and uninteresting- although I'll admit to loving the Hammerhead and the environments.)
I do feel like the second game was the weakest of the series in terms of story; and it could have laid foundations for a lot of ME3. But... They released DLC when they HAD to know where the third game was going, right? They could have had hints and clues in there, but as far as I've noticed, they didn't.
I've tried replaying the entire series since getting ME3, and even though I managed to replay ME1- including all those damn side quests and Mako missions- I couldn't bring myself to trawl through ME2 again; and ended up just replaying the intro, Horizon, the suicide mission and the DLC.
I'm in agreement that it doesn't feel like a very good middle-of-a-trilogy- they introduce a new enemy, but then it's totally resolved and removed in a way that doesn't really draw the player or Shepard in emotionally and doesn't leave any sort of lasting effect beyond "this enemy is no longer relevant". The squadmates are varied and interesting; but packing in so many of them leaves a few of them rather lacking in how much you can interact with them, making the primary strength of the game (IMO) feeling very watered down and weak.
(By the way, Garrus has THREE on-ship conversations; four if romanced. One of- if not the- most popular squadmates of the trilogy, and probably one of the earliest recruited, has THREE conversations, all of which are "standard"- a "welcome aboard" conversation, a "I need your help" pre-loyalty mission conversation, and a "thanks for the help" post-loyalty mission conversation. That's pretty shameful.)
The DLC has greater strengths; it does provide hints of what may happen in ME3. Arrival being the biggest one; but even Overlord could be argued to pointing towards the organic/synthetic fusion into a dangerous AI. That could have been worked into a great hint at the Catalyst, or at the very least the Reapers themselves- or the fact that Shepard's cybernetics are overridden could have been taken further and potentially been an interesting plot. Overlord feels like a huge wasted opportunity to me in hindsight. (At the time, it just seemed rather blah and uninteresting- although I'll admit to loving the Hammerhead and the environments.)