I'm an RPG player. The first game was definitely very RPG. The second game did annoy me a bit as it took some action/FPS cues with the god damn ammo, but that was okay, and I ended up really loving the second game. The third was just fantastic, but I will admit that I played it after the "fixes", so the story was near perfect for me and my characters. Also, I think the third was fantastic only because it was the culmination of the whole story and not because it was doing anything else. ME2 holds the trophy of being the best of the series for a reason.
I definitely understand how it can be difficult for non-RPG people to get into it. I mean, @TurboR56Mini is your standard FPS gamer, who really only played sports games until I introduced him to the other genres. He could not stand the pace of it.
It will be interesting to see if BioWare adjusts some of the mechanics in the first one to really pull new players in.