User blog comment:Commdor/IGN's ME3 Review-in-Progress/@comment-1786741-20120229040236/@comment-1221773-20120229040705

Did you watch the video on the galaxy map exploration (linked above)? It shows the system in action.

As for side-quests, they felt out of place in ME2 as well. Landing on a random planet where the Blood Pack are mining just to investigate a signal? Not very relevant to stopping the Collectors. ME3 probably won't be much different in that regard.