Holy fucking crap, I see so many people pissing an moaning about the dumbest crap with this game, without even bringing up the game itself. Bought it, have put a good chunk of time into it. Maybe we can use some of these as an actual topic on the game.

Pros:
- It feels like there's an actual goddamned war for once. Fighting on Palaven's moon and seeing the planet burn with all kinds of firefights on the ground and space makes you feel like you're part of a galactic conflict instead of playing lone wolf commando while everyone else sniffs their farts on the Presidium.

-Shepard has a lot more personality this time around. Back in the other games, I could typically predict exactly what each dialogue choice would say and how it would be said. This time around, Shepard says more than one sentence or asks very specific questions. You can actually see a little bit of weakness in Shepard instead of constantly being the stoic badass whom everyone is in love with.

-Equipment and combat is improved. While inventory/leveling in ME1 was a mess, and ME2's systems for both was overly-simplistic, there are some nice compromises in ME3. You get an acceptable range of weapons, to which you can add upgrades, and leveling is similar to ME2, but with the choice of leveling your talents affecting either the damage of said talents, or improving your stats overall.
-Resource gathering has ceased to become as fucking tedious as the last two. You basically go into a system, let out a pulse, and the galaxy map will show you where you can grab available money, upgrades, artifacts, war materials, etc. They keep resources at a reasonable amount, and if you do too many pulses, Reapers will jump onto the galaxy map and chase you until you leave the star system.

- The combat is great. Most of the levels feel like arenas, in that there are tons of ways to flank/ambush enemies, while they are smart enough to do the same to you. Talents also feel like they have a higher impact, and I actually find myself using the soldier's talents for once, instead of picking the class just for its ammo talents.

-The writing is better. Characters are more expressive, and plot arcs have a little more impact. There's a fair amount of intrigue because while the council races are in chaos, Cerberus is going after their own agenda, and you find out really early on that they've somehow harnessed Reaper technology.

-Side quests are little more involved this time. Whereas Mass Effect 1 and to a lesser extent 2 copy-pasted a lot of side quests, ME3 keeps it under control and side-quests each feel unique and important


Cons:
-Disc switching (360) is a bit of a mess. It seems like main quests are on one disc, with side quests on another. I'll let you figure out why this sucks.

-Loot doesn't automatically make itself known unless you are up close and pointing your crosshairs pretty much directly on it. I'm always paranoid that I'm constantly running past new weapons/upgrades/medi-gel pickups because they're not as easily spotted as in ME 1 and 2.

-They don't address it too much in the game, but some side-quests won't last forever, and will typically just become available if you do too many main quests before it. This makes it nice and confusing when you get a quest before the cluster that that quest takes place in before that cluster actually opens up. I find myself constantly double-checking new clusters on my galaxy map just so the quest won't up and disappear on me.

-There's a bit of repetition when it comes to meeting old squad-mates. You run into them, they tell you they can't help or anything, you ask three questions and leave. There were some pleasant surprises (Jack especially), but it just feels like they wanted to fit all of your choices into context and came up with a template in doing so.

The multiplayer stuff only makes getting the endings a little bit easier. I had enough resources (at least 5000) to get all three ending choices before I even touched multiplayer.

Very vague spoilers for ME3's ending coming up:

I had a whole thing written up for the endings, but it basically just boils down to two ideas. First, gamers needing to let go of the arbitrary "good ending/bad ending" system in games. It feels dumb that we're so conditioned to expect everything to be awesome at the end just because we need to be rewarded. Second, the developers need to realize that, hey, these players put a lot of effort into the series. We hundred percented the hideous collection missions in ME1, played a bunch of dull DLC packs, and scanned planets for god knows how many combined hours in order to get the galaxy to fight the reapers. Throwing away all of that effort in the name of stuffing a Macguffin that doesn't make any sense into the last ten minutes of the game with only the "evil" option resulting in Shepard surviving felt lazy in the middle of such a well-realized, amazing series of games that has had a ton of love and work put into it.

I played through ME3, loved it all, love the whole series. The final 15 minutes or so were strange and very detached, but for what they were, they were presented well. I guess it's like eating a really good four course french gourmet meal and finishing it off with a pint of Chubby Hubby. It doesn't really fit into the motif, but it was still a well-made desert.

Huff beat me to it, and in all honesty, if they are willing to fix it after selling so many copies, they must have been uncomfortable with it in the first place. I'm open to the idea of an artist altering their own craft, but I'm not comfortable with the idea of the audience being empowered to have everything catered to their current mindset at all times.

At this point, I don't give a high-flying shit about "choice." I wasn't attracted to the game based on its binary choice system. I loved it because of the rich setting, the great characters, and the hectic gameplay. Being able to affect the story was nice, but I feel like the decisions I made had already affected how things played out, and I didn't need a laundry list of how my side-quests are all doing in the long term. All I wanted was a decent amount of closure that stuck to the mythology, and I wasn't happy with what was delivered.