If you mean the ability to land on planets and then spend more time fighting the bouncy vertical movement of your vehicle than actually moving around the map, then yes, I guess ME1 had more freedom. I found them about the same in terms of linearity, but I was very glad I didn't have the bounce-o-matic sessions anymore.
"Levels" (for lack of better word) were extremely "follow the only road" in ME2. Yes, missions generally had a single start point and a single end point in ME1 as well, but the point is that the path from A to B was MUCH more free an unencumbered in ME1. It was, well, sort of the difference between an RPG and an almost-FPS.
What platform were you playing it on? I have the PC version and enjoyed every moment in the Mako - it goes up, down and side to side like a boss, and you don't even have to maneuver around obstacles :-)
PC here as well. Sure, you can drive over all but the nearly vertical mountains... but hit the slightest bump and the Mako is like a superball. Mako was fun at first, but planetside gets tedious fast: loading screen - bounce - bounce - hit anomoly 1/2/3 and do same minigame for all - bounce - short, unsatisfying vehicle firefight - loading screen. ME2 was much better - here's a planet, grab the resources, if there's a special mission, then you get a loading screen.
