I've played Mass Effect 2 for over 30 hours now. Even if you knock off three hours for scanning planets for resources, and that's an over estimate, that's a lot of content. Not only that, it's pure content, as virtually zero time is spent faffing with inventory or making complicated, agonising levelling choices. In fact, I auto-level. The dropping of the RPG baggage only leaves room for the awesome for the most part.

A part of the game that is hidden unless you look for it is a host of mini-missions, some of them linked together in a chain. This is because they don't come to you via the various characters in the game, such as the personal quests and the main story, instead they come via scanning planets. Any time you enter orbit of a planet the Normandy does a scan and informs you if an anomaly is present. An anomaly is effectively a mission. They're not as long as the personal or main story, but they are engaging and take place in different environments against different enemies.

I've spent some time gallivanting around the Milky Way making sure at least every planet has been pre-scanned. This is easy to do as the galaxy map tells you what percentage of planets have been pre-scanned. This means zapping to an areas, sector, nebula or whatever via a Mass Relay and then using FTL to go to every system in that sector and scan it. The location of anomalies tends to expand the planets and sectors available on the galaxy map in order to complete the multi-part missions which in turn give you more planets to scan.

I've been investigating space stations taken over by rogue virtual intelligences, searching the wreck of a spacecraft collapsing around me on the edge of a cliff, re-instigating the shield that protected a colony from its sun, rescued a large vessel falling into the atmosphere on a timed deadline and innumerable planetary missions involving archaeological digs, mining and nefarious plots of the Geth, pirates and mercenary outfits. It's been great. Even better, in true Mass Effect 2 style you experience no pork, you find the anomaly and are delivered straight to the point of the action and conflict via a glorious scene involving your shuttle landing at the actions doorstep. Yes, it's a different scene each time, not just a generic rendering.

In short, this process reveals a whole lot of content which is worth playing. It's hard to say how much but it's quite a bit. I think I'm near the end of it, but then I thought I was a few hours ago only to realise I'd been that busy travelling to sectors with exploration to be done I'd not noticed the 'chain effect' and a whole host of new mini-missions having been triggered. It's a busy life going around poking your nose into everyone's business.

While I'm doing this the next main story plot sits on my to do list. I suspect once I do it I'll be taken head long into the final play so I'm making sure I've scoured the game for content. I've also done all the loyalty missions, which I'll no doubt talk about at some point in the future. I'm also sure Miranda wants to jump me, she's just waiting for the most dramatically appropriate moment, no doubt when we are both looking death straight in the eye. In a game so full of full on awesome as Mass Effect 2, that's the only time it's worth propositioning a potential partner.