Are you playing the Legendary editions? The first one definitely didn't age super well, even on LE. the mako sections are not great, the combat is decent with the LE changes, and random planet exploration is not very good either.

but the story, character stuff, and the lore of the world are very good, and it's a great kickstart to the universe and your investment in the rest of the trilogy, 2 is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the first and by the third you're really invested and the gameplay has made great strides. It's a little tough to get into, but it does really snowball into something incredible.

Also, in the first one, there is a point of no return that the game doesn't warn you about explicitly, I missed out on doing DLC or character specific side quests because I went too far and couldn't return, be careful.