Since no one else has done much of this, I'm going to try to defend a couple of the decisions that you complain about below. Not all of them, but the few that I thought were ok/good, anyway.



I sort of agree with you here, but I didn't think this was a particularly bad instance of the cliche. It's not like they pulled a Norse god out of the hat, they just revealed a higher level of AI consciousness. We hadn't seen it before, but it was very believable and fit in with the story. The reason these cliches are so annoying in most other games is because they lead you to believe that you've won, and then pull the REAL enemy out. It ruins the apex of the story because you care more about the enemy you've known about for the whole game than you do the "real" enemy. That's not really a problem in ME3, though. AI-dude is still the Reapers, more or less.





This is the part I take most issue with, because I actually really liked this part of the story. The reapers do kill organic life, but they also preserve it. Each new civilization becomes part of the reaper collective to survive for all time. The reapers believe (or at least their higher AI consciousness believes) that, left unchecked, synthetic life would dominate the galaxy to such a degree that organic life would never again develop. The reapers therefore "prune" the galaxy shortly before the point when synthetics take over, allowing the organic cycle to start anew. And you know, that sort of makes sense. In the reaper model there is always a flourishing level of organic life (because they only harvest the advanced species). They are allowed to develop however they will for tens of thousands of years, and then, at the end, their progress, culture and essence are preserved. From the perspective of an organic, is that really worse than the permanent annihilation of organic life from the galaxy?



I'll try to be quick. Firstly, the Geth and Edi storylines never really become "dominant." The Geth have a large and important mission, but no more important than the others (and no more important than the ones in the last game). Edi never gets a mission at all.

Secondly, yes, it's possible to get the Geth and the Quarians to work together, but it's also difficult. There aren't many paths that lead that way, and most players will see the attempt at resolution literally blow itself to pieces. You can just as easily argue that the theme there is that cooperation is unrealistic.

Lastly, destroying the mass relays makes sense. I always assumed that would happen, personally. You're told throughout the game that you are assembling a giant device that will project "an energy" of some sort that will defeat the reapers. I was picturing a giant EMP (and that's basically what it was in the ending I got). It only makes sense that a device designed to obliterate high technology would wipe out the mass relays. I actually like the idea of mass relays being destroyed, myself. It will force future societies to develop their own technology and solutions instead of just piggy-backing what has come before. Keep in mind that Element Zero and the knowledge of how to work it still exists, so it's not like they're back to square one.



True, there is no "happy" ending, but why should there be? It's not a bad ending just because everyone didn't live happily ever after.



It's not a perfect rationalization, but I'm ok with imagining that the AI consciousness wrongly believed that Shepard's implants would kill him. It's messy, but this doesn't really seem like a plot hole, exactly.



This one is a lot easier to rationalize. Right before you go into the beacon, the radio chatter specifically says that the entire hammer was destroyed, and that no one made it to the beam. Says the team was wiped out to a man. So let's say you're Joker, sitting up there in your fancy ship and you hear that the attack failed, and Shepard is dead. What do you do? Well, you try to rescue whichever friends are left and get outta dodge. It seems totally reasonable to me that Joker and company were fleeing from earth.

Now, there is the thing about Hackett calling Shepard, but that's not a big deal. Either:
1) Joker was already gone
or
2) Hackett was addressing a private channel that joker didn't have access to.







No, I agree, the indoctrination bit was not done well. I don't understand the gigantic backlash about this part, though. Similar things are done all the time in other games, movies, etc. Take Inception, for example (spoilers for those who haven't watched). The ending to that was very much the same. You don't know if any of it really happened, and no follow-ups were planned. Why hate on Mass Effect so much?



For the most part. It was a shining example of both the best and the worst parts of Western RPGs.

Pro:

Excellent story, great dialog and voice acting, superb pacing throughout the game.

Con:

Virtually zero control over your character's practical effectiveness. In a JRPG, you can show up to a Boss's lair and get your rear end handed to you dozens of times in a row. It's completely possible to be too weak to progress through a certain area. It's possible to lose if you use the wrong tactics, or equip poor gear, or level up the wrong spell, etc. In Mass Effect you have nothing but the illusion of choice. Leveling up means nothing because the story does it for you. Even the levels themselves hardly mean anything. You can ignore every side mission in the game, do the bare minimum and allocate your leveling points in the worst way possible, and hardly have any more difficulty at all.

Other annoyances that aren't specific to Western RPGs:

1) Actually, there's only one. The freaking citadel fedex quests. Just about every story mission you complete opens up new planets to explore. Which means new deliverables to pick up. Which means running through every room in the citadel each time. EVERY time you complete a story mission you have to run through most of the citadel. That absolutely drove me up the wall.

Anyway, I'm over it.