You play with the same character the first 3 games and some choises made in the first and second game carry to the second and third, so play them in order! Gameplay changes sligthly between games, so if you don’t like the gameplay of the first, still give the second a try. I know people love RPG’s and ME was definitely the better RPG but overall ME2 was the better game. But the second was a better game, the story was done a lot better, there was more interesting characters and more big epic moments.
Mass Effect 1 had more of an impact, being a really amazing sci-fi RPG. Padstarr is very good and highly configurable and customizable to how you want your controls to be. Instead, I either use pinnacle game profiler and it's successor, Padstarr (which can import PGP's game profiles). I don't use the mod controller support from nexus. And if you don’t fall in love with the setting? Then I wouldn’t worry about it. I run all 3 Mass Effect games on my PC with a gamepad.
Once you fall in love with the setting - and this should happen relatively quickly, as the game starts strong - then go back and start Mass Effect 1.
So my advice for any new player is this: start with Mass Effect 2. What Mass Effect game should I play first?
