Mass Effect 3/YMMV

• Accidental Innuendo: Samantha Traynor's comments about how much she likes Chess. "I love the feel of something solid in my hands" indeed...
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Udina for some. For others, it counts as Take That, Scrappy! though.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Jacob Taylor. Even if you romanced him as FemShep he still hooks up with Dr Cole during your incarceration. Given that he also hooked up with Miranda at one point, are we still sure she was the one to end things? And if she did, was it because she realised that Jacob might be obsessed with screwing the boss to get the "The priiize". It certainly puts his hatred of the Illusive Man into a strange new light.
  • Speaking of TIM, he gets more of this in Mass Effect 3 than in Mass Effect 2 (and he got a lot of interpretation in Mass Effect 2); most of it comes down to when he was indoctrinated. The novels suggest he's been subtly indoctrinated for the last twenty years, where as he didn't get fully enhanced to Saren-levels until fairly late in the game. This causes some debate over how responsible he is for his own actions; if he wasn't indoctrinated(or at least not enough that it could be called More Than Mind Control), then he did a running leap over the Moral Event Horizon a long time ago. If he is indoctrinated, then he gets demoted from part of a Big Bad Ensemble with Harbinger and the Catalyst to being a Dragon with an Agenda or worse, the Evil Genius to the Catalyst's big bad and Harbinger's dragon. Incidentally, this would also bump Kai Leng down from The Dragon to The Brute.
    • It would also introduce a Plot Hole the size of the Citadel, because the entire plot of Mass Effect 2 is the Illusive Man expending 2 years' worth of effort and billions of credits' worth of resources to do something (specifically, resurrect Shepard) that he already knows that other indoctrinated servants of the Reapers (the Collectors) are working to oppose. Had he been indoctrinated at that time, he would have just let the Collectors have you.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced:
  • We can finally, finally go to Earth. After it's been wrecked...
  • The Game Informer article. Garrus, Ashley or Kaidan, and Liara are all confirmed as squadmates? The game still lets you explore the galaxy? Powers branch multiple times and weapon customization is back? Hell. Yes.
  • Recent press releases confirm that players will get to visit Thessia, Sur'Kesh, Palaven (or one of its moons), and Rannoch (or one of its moons); essentially the homeworlds of each of the Council races and the Quarians/Geth. Sur'Kesh was described as "like the hanging gardens of Babylon."
  • True gay options for both male and female characters!
  • The fact that Shepard can now sneak up on enemies, yank them over cover, and stab them through the heart has resulted in near-unanimous squee.
  • The fans finally get the much-awaited FemShep trailer.
  • You can finally play as different Alien Races (in multiplayer).
  • The multiplayer itself caused a serious Broken Base and cries of Ruined FOREVER. Then people played it...
  • CARNAGE IS BACK. Y'know, in case you missed turning your shotgun into a rocket launcher.
  • If you can get over the Internet Backdraft about first day DLC, one of your squad is a frickin' PROTHEAN! The same DLC also features a mission to Eden Prime, complete with the music from the first game.
  • And the launch trailer. Many nerdgasms were had upon seeing such things as a Brute at 0:48, Jack at 1:26 (now with hair!), Legion at 1:23, the Illusive Man, and the Destiny Ascension.
  • Faunts are back for the credits music (at least going by the official soundtrack's tracklist), so one of the oft-complained-of issues of the second game... rectified!
  • The Extended Endings DLC will be free, as will the Resurgence Pack, which opens up geth and batarian characters for multiplayer... not to mention the Krogan Vanguard and Asari Justicar Adept. Plus, two new multiplayer maps and a few extra guns to play with.
  • PlayStation 3 players can now finally join in on the N7 Weekend Challenges, starting with Operation Exorcist on the weekend of April 27 to 29, 2012. Before this, only PC and Xbox 360 players were able to participate in the N7 Weekend Challenges; Sony users were excluded due to undisclosed reasons, with Sony and BioWareclaiming the other as responsible for holding things back.
  • At E3 2012, a Wii U version was announced, complete with additional features such as a more user-friendly menu thanks to the controller's touch screen. Made more notable when coupled with the Wii U version of Batman: Arkham City, as it's a good sign that Nintendo consoles won't be left out of big projects anymore.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • After the flak they got because of the endings, Bioware's founder apologized to the fans in the company's blog and promised that they would work on giving the endings a greater feeling of closure. Some fans decided to stop the cries of RUINATION until more information was revealed, others didn't.
  • BioWare has annouced Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, a free DLC meant to add cutscenes and epilogue scenes to the end.
• Awesome Music: Some doubted Clint Mansell could fill Jack Wall's shoes. They were quickly proven wrong.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Any battle with a Destroyer Reaper, but the one on Rannoch in particular. Defeating a Reaper, ON FOOT.
  • The final showdown with Kai Leng. He may have gotten Cutscene Power to the Max in your previous sequences, but both the fight and its aftermath are outstandingly satisfying. The music is pretty awesome too.
• Breather Boss: Despite being built up as Shepard's equal and showing off impressive skills in cutscenes, Kai Leng himself is incredibly easy. He's mostly just a buffed-up Phantom, but he is fought in a cramped space, and lacks numerous abilities that Phantoms possess... including invisibility and a shield gauntlet. He also keeps his distance more than the more easily-killed Phantoms, and his gun doesn't do as much damage. In the final battle, it's really hard for him to actually kill you: his flunkies (including, ironically, two Phantoms) are a much bigger threat than he is.
• Broken Base:
  • The endings either fit with the game's tone perfectly, or are awful, unrealistic, and completely invalidate not just all the player investment in this game, but in the entire series. And then there are the people who want a middle ground where they think the endings fit but wish the mass relays were not harmed. Or complain that they look rushed, like they lack a few cutscenes and lines of dialogue (like the whole Normandy sequence). The info prompt at the end summing up Shepard's victory is similarly debated upon.
  • Bioware ultimately announced that they would work on giving the ending a bigger feeling of closure and answering many questions of the fans regarding it. The response to this announcement has been, as always, mixed. And let's leave it at that.
  • A smaller base breaker has appeared in the unveiling of Tali's face for the first time in a picture. Is Tali too human looking or is she beautiful in all the right ways? Also, is Bioware scum for using a photoshopped stock image, or does it work out well enough to be forgiven?
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: In multiplayer on the gold difficulty, even if you choose a random enemy and level, you'll land in rooms with Firebase White and Geth/Cerberus with alarming frequency. The map is somewhat justified, given how easy it is for a well coordinated team to bunker up in Firebase White. The Geth is picked more often, since most players perceive them as the least challenging enemy group, mainly because the Geth Prime are much easier to destroy compared to Cerberus' Atlas/Phantom combo. Cerberus, for some, has the edge, because fighting normal enemies isn't as frustrating, since they flank you far less often, and are more vulerable to every kind of attack. Reaper is barely chosen, because of the Banshees alone.
• Complete Monster: Henry Lawson and Kai Leng are incredibly easy to dislike, after all they've pulled here.
• Contested Sequel: There are a LOT of fans who didn't care for the final entry in the trilogy. The general consensus contests it as a conclusion — there are many who repeat the phrase "the game was great, but the ending sucked."
• Creator's Pet:
  • Fans have accused Liara and "Team Dextro" — Garrus and Tali — of being this.
  • Bioware themselves have admitted to being fans of Liara, which some have complained resulted in her having more dialogue than Garrus and Tali combined. This isn't helped by the fact that Liara's the only Mass Effect 1 squad member guaranteed to still be alive by the time of the final battle with the Reapers, and unless Shepard romanced Kaiden or Ashley, his/her last thought will always be of Liara. In fact, even if they survive Virmire or the Suicide Mission, Tali and the Virmire Survivor can still die depending on if the player's actions in this game.
• Critical Dissonance: The game received universal acclaim from critics, with over 70 perfect scores. Fan opinion, however, is possibly the most wildly divided out of any game in Bioware's history. Considering the default state of the fandom is a base broken into about a dozen or more pieces, that's really saying something. Examined here.
• Demonic Spider:
  • The Geth Hunters. This time they turn actually invisible, and unless you are careful they can start shooting you in the back at close distance just when you are engaged with that Prime.
  • Depending on where you face them, Banshees. They're well armoured, have a powerful (if slow) biotic attack, use Teleport Spam as their main mode of transportation and if they get close... well, things get unpleasant for you. In an open battlefield, they're managable, but in close quarters? Yeesh, things tend to get hairy. Their close quarters attack not only instant kills but makes teammates unable to revive you, forcing them to go the whole rest of the round without you. Easy to avoid normally, but if you get cornered or flanked near one it won't be pretty. This goes double for Mighty Glacier character types who can normally take a lot of damage but lack a dodge maneuver, as this attack renders their damage resistance irrelevant and their lack of a dodge makes getting out of the way a lot harder, especially with the Teleport Spam making their movement unpredictable.
• Disappointing Last Level: The final mission in London. It suffers MASSIVELY from Offscreen Moment of Awesome (few of your war assets gathered throughout the game appear and the only ones that do were the ones gathered during the main game). There's no Final Boss fight, just a frustrating and difficult Hold the Line segment where you fight endless waves of Banshees and Marauders in cramped quarters while a Destroyer shoots at you with a One-Hit Kill laser.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Kai Leng. Big time. Despite being a Goddamn space Nazi, he has a LOT of fangirls. And fanboys, probably because of how big of a Badass he is.
• Ending Aversion: Caused a lot of people who were on the fence for picking up this game or even trying out the series in the first place to leave it be due to the lack of variety, abruptness, and numerous plotholes lambasted by many players. However, while the Extended Cut DLC made things better, there is still a 50/50 Broken Base.
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • The final opponent of the game, a Marauder you shoot while limping to the beam in London, has been named Marauder Shields and is gaining a large fanbase. He tried to save us from the ending. We must honor his noble sacrifice.
  • In a similar vein, the three husks Shepard kills in the same sequence have been dubbed The Three Husketeers.
  • Though not to the extent of Marauder Shields, Major Coats has quite a few fans for a character with such little screen-time. The debut trailer is likely a big reason for this. Having the same voice as Hawke probably helps.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Notable during the dream sequences the Boy always appears with the Reaper sound and when you run away from the boy, you can sometimes hear the voice of the Illusive Man and only of the Illusive Man.
  • Liara mind-melds with Shepard at the end of the game under the auspices of sharing memories with him or her, something Asari can do with people they are particular close to. She even explicity refers back to a conversation she and Shepard had in the first game when particular ability was mentioned. The only problem? The conversation in question was about Asari reproduction and the entire sequence has this subtle vibe to it. Turn your head and that giant glowing light Liara and Shepard fall into looks incredibly familiar. This happens even if you don't romance her.
• Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • The Reapers are defeated for good, the galaxy is saved, the Normandy crew makes it out alive, and Commander Shepard is remembered for generations to come as a legendary hero(ine). Great, right? Except Shepard's dead, or at least very likely dead. And the mass relay network is destroyed, causing a possible technological dark age for galactic civilization. And the Normandy crew is left stranded on an alien planet, with possibly no rescue ever coming, and no guarantee some alien squad mates won't starve to death. Granted, the Distant Finale all but states that civilization recovered from the loss of the Mass Relays, but it's little consolation when the fates of nearly the entire cast is left unresolved.
  • Even worse, if the life of the planet the Normandy crash lands on happens to be dextro-amino acid based, everyone BUT Garrus and Tali will starve to death. Possibly Tali as well if there is no way to purify the food adequately enough. It's terrifying to think about Garrus spending the rest of his life alone on an alien world after watching the crew of the Normandy die a slow, starvation related death. If levo-based, Liara will live there for the next nine hundred years.
• Even Better Sequel: Mass Effect 3's combat is considered a huge step up from the first two gameplay-wise. It's much more fluid, the enemies are smarter, the melee system is more satisfying and powerful, and the overly-simplified weapon system from Mass Effect 2 gets significantly fleshed out, with greater weapon variety and the return of weapon mods.
• Fandom Gank: The massive negative backlash to the end as it was originally released was the Trope Namer. The fandom reaction to the ending was equal parts "Huh?" and "You gotta be kidding!" and eventually grew to such a size that Bioware was forced to release DLC that tried to put a more acceptable spin on what happened. It's debatable if they succeeded, but the franchise managed to stay alive to spawn 2017's Mass Effect: Andromeda, which seems to have redeemed the property.
• Fan Hater:
  • Whenever you are saying you liked the game, or even worse, liked the endings, is basically summoning this.
  • Flame Bait: And depending on where you are, it can be quite critical.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Everything after the final encounter with the Illusive Man is shaping up to be this for many. Doesn't matter the reason (significant blood loss, continued exposure to Geth/Cerberus/Prothean/Reaper mind altering technology, stress from the fate of your species and the galaxy resting on your shoulders, or personal losses), just forget about it. It never happened.
  • Some claim it ends just after you get hit by a blast from Harbinger, with everything from "Marauder Shields" onwards being a dream.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: Remember how Ereba (the Blue Rose of Illium) stated that she wasn't sure if she should marry a krogan because they're a long-term commitment while with humans you only have to stick out for a hundred years before they die? Well... how does six months sound instead, Ereba?
• Game Breaker:
  • Stasis, particularly with the Stasis Bubble evolution, was this in the demo. Since you can damage paralyzed enemies now, it remains so, even after a slight cooldown nerf in multiplayer.
  • The new weapon weight system allows Vanguards equipped with only a pistol or SMG or an Avenger Assault Rifle (with a weight reduction) to spam Charge and Nova near instantly and repeatedly. With the right build, they become nearly untouchable, crushing the enemy with Charge/Nova and Charging away before taking any serious damage. In multiplayer, it's not uncommon to see skilled Vanguards earning double the amount of points of everyone else.
  • The Particle Rifle (found in the From Ashes DLC) emits a small beam that grows in intensity and damage as you continuously fire, and will chew through an enemy's shields and health. The gun will also never run out of ammo (you just have to wait a few seconds to refill energy). Add a Thermal Clip upgrade to the gun, and you can start mowing down Harvesters, mechs and everything in your path with sustained fire by the time you leave the Citadel for the first time and finish Javik's mission. Best of all... your squadmates can wield the same weapon too!
    • Want to make it even worse? Add an incendiary or cryo effect to the weapon. The percentage chance to activate procs separately on every particle. It's pretty much the magic wand of inevitable burning/stunlock.
  • The Black Widow sniper rifle (basically, the good old Widow from part two but with three shots in a magazine and a negligible damage nerf) makes sniping pathetically easy. With the right upgrades, it effectively never runs out of ammo and wastes any non-boss enemy with a single hit delivered to any part of the body sticking out of cover. Plus, with Tactical Cloak, you can put two shots on an enemy before he even knows you're there.
  • The changes to Tactical Cloak. Whereas powers were completely disabled when it was active in Mass Effect 2, this iteration lets you use a power to break cloak. So you can still cloak, target an enemy with a power, pop him with your increased sniper damage, and get a damage bonus on both. The cloak's cooldown is relative to the time spent in it too, so if you do this quickly enough, you can actually get a cheaper cooldown that you would if you just used the other power without cloaking.
  • The M-37 Falcon assault rifle, whose 25mm "mini-grenades" can dislodge enemies from cover with an airburst triggered simply by firing near them. Combined with incendiary ammo, it can set a whole squad of mooks on fire, effectively trivializing even Insanity playthroughs. It had to have its firing rate and spare ammo cut in half for the multiplayer to avoid glaring imbalances.
  • Biotic explosions, especially with the aforementioned reduced cooldown of light weapons. Combining Warp and Throw, over and over again, is almost like having infinite grenade supply. Oh, and it slows down the most powerful enemies, including Atlases, Primes, Brutes and Banshees.
  • Shockwave can clear a room of most enemies, and properly built up, a competent player can survive multiple waves on gold singlehandedly by spamming this attack and not having to worry about cooldowns.
  • Combat drones are a minor case, especially when built up to use Chain Lightning. They distract enemies, causing them to focus their attention away from you, and when [[Elite Mooks Guardians do this the drones become a gift from god.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Everybody's favorite enemy, the Husks! Even worse, now they can grab you, knocking you out of cover and forcing you to flail around (read: mash the melee attack button) to shake them off and kill them.
  • Marauders and Ravagers are their longer-ranged counterparts on higher difficulties. Their rapid-fire weapons make them quite capable of ripping shields to pieces while players are focused on other enemies. Ravagers in particular can kill players within 2-4 shots if they manage to be exposed.
  • Phantoms and Nemeses: it's bad enough they fight in a way you're not used to (Nemeses use cover perfectly and can knock out your shields with one shot; Phantoms have biotic barriers, dance around, cloak to heal themselves, backflip, and go into melee combat surprisingly fast), its just that there are so damn many of them in a lot of levels. Phantoms can One Hit KO you as well, rendering you unable to be revived... aggravating in multiplayer games when it happens to your squad's most effective member; players usually make Phantoms top priority even compared to Atlases to kill as quickly as possible.
  • Normally Centurions. They are similar to normal troopers, except their Mattocks let them deal out slightly more damage, they have shields, and they can launch smoke grenades. The shields are aggravating because they make the Centurions more durable than most other enemies, meaning they take longer to bring down, and their smoke grenades obscure your vision and keep you from using powers, but under normal conditions you should still be able to dispatch them efficiently. When there is a ton of them, however...
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • In MP, sometimes an enemy's instakill attack glitches and leaves a small window for the victim to use medi-gel or have a teammate revive them.
  • Another MP related example. If you get knocked out in Firebase White, there's a small chance that you'll fall through the floor. The effects are surprisingly positive. Not only do you teleport to the start/extraction area, you get instant revived without using medi-gel! Very helpful if you just got surrounded by enemies before dying.
  • More MP related goodies. If the host leaves a multiplayer game at anytime, the game automatically resets the current wave. Aggravating as this problem can be, it has a positive side. When the wave resets, your supplies fill back up again. Even better, exploiting this bug doesn't penalize anyone of XP and credits, even if the previous host re-joins the room. One caveat though: doing this during a money round might prevent you from winning the credits if you're the host re-joining.
  • Tali can die on Rannoch if you side with the Geth. In some games, this doesn't stop her from returning from the dead to romance Shepard later.
  • If you save everyone you can, the game can make a male Shepard "remember" some of Thane's romance dialogue in the final dream sequence.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A lot, but Aethyta's offhand comment in the second game about the other Asari and how they "laughed the blue off my ass" when she suggested building their own mass relays become this in light of the fact that the mass relays blow up in every ending.
    • Also Aethyta's comment about watching a Krogan drink a liquefied Turian on a dare considering the methods of the Collectors and the appearance of the Brutes in the sequel.
  • A human female is heard speaking with a volus about her plans to go to Sanctuary. The volus glibly assures her that it's just a money making ploy and says he wishes he'd thought of it. Shepard is later sent to that very location on a mission and learns it's much much worse than a scam. In the Embassies, a woman is seen negotiating the emergency transport of her daughter (by an asari wife) to the asari homeworld of Thessia. The embassy worker pulls some strings and grants the woman's request. Thessia is overrun by Reapers a short time later. Poor kid. Come to think of it, anything you do on the Citadel is likely to seem both sad and futile, given the game's conclusion.
  • Inverted (in that the harshness comes from a past event, rather than a future one) with one of the side missions, in which Engineer Adams asks you to get a thermal pipe from the Citadel to fix a design flaw with the Normandy's drive core. Why is it harsh, you ask? Adams explains that the problem causes a dangerous gas release in the engineering bay when the shields are under too much stress... which is exactly how you would have lost a squadmate in Mass Effect 2 (usually Legion) if you didn't get Tali's shield upgrade.
  • An asari commando with PTSD talks with a psychiatrist at Huerta Memorial Hospital. She was stationed at the human colony of Tiptree, and, there, befriended the farmers and families who lived there, particularly a adventurous young girl named Hillary, whom she later must kill to defend herself. We later find out that Joker is from Tiptree, and has a young sister named Hillary, whose survival he isn't sure about.
  • In Mass Effect 2, there is a minor sideplot where one of Shepard's crew members has Cerberus relocate his family from one of the vulnerable human colonies to Earth, and they barely escape a Collector attack. The crewman is extremely relieved his family is safe now. And then Earth winds up being the first planet to get attacked in Mass Effect 3.
  • In the Huerta Memorial Hospital, you can hear a woman arguing with the receptionist about the name of the Hospital. She argues that the president the hospital is named after is still alive despite having been braindead for an hour. The receptionist argues that he is nothing more than an android beacuse a VI does all the thinking for him. Siding with the receptionist makes Shepard compare the president to nothing more than a Husk. This comment can come back hard during the Cerberus base in which Shepard had been braindead for month before being revived causing Shepard to wonder if she/he is just a VI which imitates the original Shepard.
  • In Mass Effect 2, if you bring Jack with you during Legion's loyalty mission, she's very vocal about her disdain towards possibly brainwashing the heretics. Specifically, "if you screwed with my head, made me nod and smile at everything... I'd rather you blow my head off. Let me die as me." Jack's remark sounds so much worse if you skip the "Grissom Academy" mission and don't save her from Cerberus. Later on, in "Sanctuary", this is exactly what Cerberus does to Jack, in order to make her a Phantom. Damn.
• Hate Dumb:
  • Few wouldn't agree that the hate Mass Effect 3 is getting on Meta Critic and YouTube for including homosexual relationships, as well as the hate for a writer who didn't even work on the game, are prime examples of this. It it also undeniable that there has been a massive Internet Backdraft; the game's Metascore from critics is an impressive 94. The user reviews? 4.8.
  • The indirect causes of most of this hatred are examined in this article.
  • Some have noted how this can be a good thing.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • The Reaper SAT beam makes a low-pitched, metallic blaster beam sound effect.
  • The noises that Reapers and the husks in general make, all fit this trope. Of special note is the noise the Reapers make when they find you while you're scanning a system. Dear. God. Oh, you haven't been paying attention to the Reaper Alert level again? They'll make sure you notice.
    • It's mentioned in-game as well! Some characters will mention that the Reaper horns are tuned to a specific frequency designed to induce a fear response in organics... and it's implied it can ultimately cause indoctrination!
  • Listen close in Legion's level as you destroy Reaper code. Hear that? That's devilish, subdued laughter.
  • Or that Goddamn Banshee screaming.

Joker: Mutating people to turn them into living weapons is one thing, but the yelling? Why make them yell? That's totally uncalled for.

• He Really Can Act:
  • Many have commented on how Mark Meer has greatly improved as Male Shepard, finally being able to bring in the right amount of emotion for many of the dialogue compared to his stiff presentation in the first game (Mass Effect 2 was an intermediate stage for him). A few have even gone so far as to say that he did better than fan favorite Jennifer Hale in this game.
  • People have especially pointed out that Meer delivers some of the more comedic lines in the Citadel DLC with perfect tone and timing, where Hale in turn seems to read them a bit too straight and dramatically.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Shepard's assessment of the situation as the game begins is: "Unless we're planning to Talk The Reapers To Death, the committee's a waste of time." Except Shepard seems to have forgotten that the critical moments of his career were decided not by blowing things up, but by talking people into agreeing to do what Shepard wanted. And in the endgame, the MacGuffin ends up being a way for an organic to have a face-to-face conversation with the controlling intelligence of the Reapers.
  • Bioware's "promises" that Mass Effect 3 wouldn't end with some buttons letting you pick A, B or C. Instead, you pick Red, Blue or Green. Still, the endings weren't chosen by pressing buttons but by Shepard limping to the desired choice.
• Internet Backdraft:
  • Fan support for a female Shepard was so great that BioWare decided to give her default appearance a redesign, held a contest and asked fans to pick one out of six possible designs. When the blonde Shepard started winning by a huge margin, accusations started flying around that the entire contest was a "beauty pageant" and people were accused of automatically picking the cliched Barbie-lookalike. All this stemming from hair color. To wit, her face is identical to two of other options and the rest very similar, two of the extolled "diverse" options both had loose hanging hair, and all of them had plenty of eye make-up. The controversy seems to completely extend from her hair color. Referenced here in Penny Arcade. The fact that the original default model (i.e. the one a lot of FemShep players used) wasn't even an option was also a factor.
  • According to the marketing director, many people picked her for her hairstyle, and not hair color, and a second contest was created determine her hair color with the red headed FemShep the runaway winner.
  • And now current internet squabbling is over whether the default FemShep in the game actually looks at all like she did in the voted for concept art.
  • A piece of tie in media, a Bishoujo representation of Liara in her doctor's uniform, took a lot of flack. This, has resulted in the final model being more modest... well, slightly.
  • It was leaked that getting the Collector's Edition (Retail) or Digital Deluxe Edition (Origin) of the game would include an additional character in your team, of an alien race never before available as a squadmate (specifically, Prothean). Players who don't get the Collector or Digital Deluxe Editions will be able to purchase the character as a $10 DLC, and it will be made available right from the release day. Accusations abound that Bioware deliberately cut content from the game to make a DLC of it. In response to this, Bioware has clarified that the character will appear in the regular game without DLC, but the DLC makes said character an actual squadmate. This was a complete lie: that character does not appear during normal gameplay, nor indeed any member of his species. This is made worse by the apparent hacking of the game which reveals that some of the files for the secret character are already in the game.
  • For those in the UK who preordered through the Game Group, who had exclusivity on the N7 Collector's edition and Warfare gear, were informed that they would not be stocking any edition of the game, standard or Collector's, ten days before the release date. Other online retailers gained access to copies of the N7 Collecter's Edition, but quickly sold out. Those that placed a pre-order and couldn't get a chance to order from else... well, it's not pretty.
  • In addition to the aforementioned DLC files appearing on-disc, all of the Collector's Edition weapons, the robotic dog, the N7 hoodie for Shepard and all of the pre-order bonuses (including the N7 Valkyrie and Warfare Gear, the bonuses from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and the multiplayer content for owners of Battlefield 3) were also present on the game files behind unlock keys. Modders were able to integrate them back into the game easily, and criticized the company for making the CE edition effectively pointless when it was on everyone's copy to begin with.
  • The endings... To expand on this, when fans started reaching the ending of the game, all Hell broke loose. A high-selling game with good critical reviews now boasts 2 stars on Amazon, and a Metacritic User score of 3.5 (compare the critical score of 9.5). All message boards dealing with the topic are inundated, and there are multiple polls and petitions which indicate that some ninety-eight percent of Mass Effect fans are dissatisfied with the ending. There may have never been a stronger negative reaction to ten minutes of a game in the history of the medium. For a brief idea, see this. As of this posting, that number of people who said they were satisfied with the endings is up to about 1000. Compared to about 60,000 votes that the endings were bad. There's also a Facebook group demanding a better ending for the game. It already has a membership total in the tens of thousands. One fan even went as far to report to the Federal Trade Commission over false advertising regarding the ending.
  • These three videos, and this article do the best at explaining why most people have such a problem with this ending.
  • This brilliant observation from an RPG.Net comment thread (original poster unknown) sums up most objections to the ending in one pithy line:

RPGNet: Traditionally, when the Shepherd of Man confronts the Father of Evil in a high place above the Earth and it offers dominion and all the kingdoms of the world, he's supposed to say no.

• Memetic Badass: Javik is better than you at anything. Deal with it, primitive.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • All aboard ^{[dead link]} the party temple!
  • Pre-order cancelled!
  • Kaidan can't find the Geth.
  • SPACE MAGIC.
  • We're sorry you didn't like [insert item]. What about [item] did you like?
  • I f*cking love steak.
    • We'll bang ok.
  • Condescending Javik.
  • The Endings themselves are a meme!
  • Lots of speculation for everyone!
  • Artistic Integrity.
  • Still a better ending than Mass Effect 3.
  • His name was Marauder Shields.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • It's virtually guaranteed that by the time you discover the truth about Sanctuary, if not before, you will consider Illusive Man to have gone this way. While his being indoctrinated may prevent him being wholly responsible for his actions, his character is not changed nearly as much as Benezia's, so it's debatable how much of the blame is the Reapers' and how much is his. It's also left ambiguous as to when exactly he was indoctrinated.
  • The lengths that Han'Gerrel is willing to go to destroy the Geth. It's bad enough that he attacked the geth dreadnought despite the fact that Shepard and his squad were still aboard, but he can potentially send his entire race to its doom.
  • Kai Leng crosses it big time when he impales Thane/Kirrahe. This is of course assuming that he didn't cross it in one of the novels.
• Most Annoying Sound: During the Citadel DLC, at various points in the mission, the interface will repeatedly instruct the player to take an action ("Select the enemy", "Distract the enemy") and companions can be rather incessant about "Follow these wires". Keep in mind that the whole point of this section is to be stealthy and time one's moves, so the "DO THIS, NOW!" prompts from the game get old... fast.
• Narm:
  • The sequence with the boy in the vent, as the dialogue there is... quite clunky. As is the boy's voice acting.
  • The dream sequences, possibly because they can come off as very out of nowhere and overdramatic. JOG SLOWLY IN MOON GRAVITY. DEAD PEOPLE FOREST. STOIC KID ON FIRE. HORROR FACE.
  • The Starchild's voice actor trying to put on his best 'I'm weally, weally serious about this!' voice during the ending.
  • The Stargazer calling the little boy "my sweet".
  • STEEEEEEEEVVVEEEEEEE! Shepard's emotionless "You're sure?" after learning that Cortez will be okay makes the scene even more awkward.
• Narm Charm: Aliens often shout out their homeworlds between multiplayer rounds, but the krogan squadmate's "FORRR TUCHANKAAAA" is the one that's stupidly endearing.
• One-Scene Wonder: Harbinger shows up at the very end to stop Shepard's charge into the beam up to the Citadel. It almost works.
• Player Punch:
  • The game begins with Shepard on trial for destroying a mass relay and killing over three hundred thousand thousand batarians. It's made clear s/he has to be sacrificed to avoid war, but if the relay was not destroyed this happens. Then the Reapers invade, and Shepard tries to rescue a little boy, failing to convince his/her mentor to leave Earth, before watching the shuttle the boy who refused his/her help be blown up. Former allies question Shepard because s/he still might be in league with galactic terrorists, said terrorists have declared war on the galaxy and Shepard, the ally Shepard saved at the cost of sacrificing another is very nearly killed, and s/he begins having nightmares of the little boy who died. That's just round one, you're fighting the likes of Cassius Clay and have fourteen more rounds to go.
  • Chances are this is going to be a very long list, but the players have been given one before the game has even been released. AllianceNewsNetwork tweets reveal that Emily Wong is dead. The fact that it was a massive Dying Moment of Awesome makes it only slightly less painful.
  • Mordin's Heroic Sacrifice. Killed Mid-Sentence.
  • The Fall of Thessia. No heroic sacrifice. No bittersweet victory. The homeworld of the most advanced race in the galaxy falls, and there's nothing you could have done to prevent it. Not even Earth or Palaven has been so utterly defeated by the Reaper menace.
  • If you miss your chance to save Grissom Academy, you won't ever see Jack... until the Cerberus station at the end, where you can find a recording (in a blood-spattered room) of her being operated on. This is bad enough... until you go into the next room and have to kill her in her new Phantom form.
  • Legion having to disseminate his personality in order to make peace between the quarians and the geth.
  • If you screw up the quarian-geth situation and pick the geth over the quarians, then Tali committing suicide after the entire quarian race is killed because of one moronic Admiral.
  • A Shepard who ended up romancing Kelly in the second game can recieve a one-two punch. Kelly reveals that during the entire time she was with you, she was secretly feeding reports about you and the crew to the Illusive Man. If you yell at her for doing this, you find out later that she committed suicide with Cyanide pills. If you forgive her but don't tell her to change her identity, she ends up getting an off screen death after the Cerberus attack. Cerberus shows up at her door and upon confirming her identity unceremoniously executes her with a bullet to the head.
• Porting Disaster: The Wii U port despite having some interesting gamepad features is easily the worst incarnation of the game due to lousy performance, which is inferior to the other versions at best of times, and can tank to near-unplayable levels during heavy firefights. On top of that, the port missed out on all the DLC except for From Ashes and the Extended Cut endings. The PlayStation 3 port was also pretty bad on release, but patches eventually bought it up to being about as fast as the Xbox 360 version.
• Replacement Scrappy: Diana Allers is this for Emily Wong fans. The accusations of stunt casting haven't helped either.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, provided you take the Paragon interrupt. Or even if you don't... she can KNOCK SHEPARD OUT.
  • When James Vega was first revealed, there were complaints about his design or him taking a spot that could have gone to either an older character or an alien one. These days, the biggest complaint about him seems to be that he's not a romance option.
  • Udina looked like this would happen to him... nowhere in the whole series is he as sympathetic as the first time you meet him in Mass Effect 3. Instead, you get to pop him one as he tries to kill the Asari councilor. And he's still more sympathetic than in the previous two games. He did it for Earth.
  • When Javik was revealed many fans felt slighted that a someone from a race said to be completely dead could be a squadmember as well as being day one DLC. However, with his dark and angry snarky attitude, surprising character depth, and his Fish Out of Temporal Water situation, he has grown a fanbase of his own.
• Ruined FOREVER:
  • Because the Reapers are invading, because humans are implied to be special, because Earth is featured, because the Reapers are attacking Earth specifically, because the casualties are too low, BioWare's releasing it too soon, and because Shepard is a Space Marine who has to protect Earth from an alien threat. And considering how little is known about the game, it's possible that none of these things will be true anyway.
  • Jack Wall will not be composing Mass Effect 3. Even with Hollywood composer Clint Mansell as a replacement this has left some fans very unhappy.
  • With the recent delay of Mass Effect 3, EA announced that they were attempting to make the game appeal to a broader market. Obviously, with a statement that vague, we can tell that the game will be "dumbed down", be turned into a Call of Duty clone and multiplayer is inevitable.
  • The announcement that you will no longer be working with Cerberus had many fans have leaping to the conclusion Bioware has decided to forsake Renegades.
  • This tweet from Casey Hudson, confirming homosexual romances for a male Shepard, is generating a lot of ire. Fan Dumb and clearly homophobic issues.
  • The Kinect is being used to issue orders in battle and and make dialogue choices. People immediately started asking why they couldn't just use a normal microphone instead of using the Kinect.
  • There is also the issue that, as demonstrated in the announcement demonstration, it seems really weird to say the shortened dialog wheel version out loud and then have Shepard say something completely different.
  • Many were convinced Mass Effect 3 would follow Halo 3's plot to the letter, due to the focus on saving Earth. These complaints are almost entirely gone. Similarly, the introduction of James Vega as a squadmate led many to believing BioWare wanted to pander to the Gears of War crowd. As noted in Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, he is a mostly well-liked character now.
  • When multiplayer was confirmed, many fans feared that single-player would be diminished for it, while others felt it was a sign that BioWare was not taking their game or series seriously. While there are still people who do not like the presence of the multiplayer, this has either faded with the robustness of the single-player, or else drowned out by other issues.
  • Ashley's new design was met with much vitriol, as people felt that the tight outfit and loose hair was more akin to Miranda's catsuit than Ashley's soldier gear. Developers have since confirmed that the cat suit is an alternate outfit only, and she will be wearing heavier armor in her main uniform.
  • Bioware polled the community on what the 'official' face of FemShep should be. When the Blonde Shepard won, many in the fandom EXPLODED into a cauldron of angst about how Blondeshep was clearly a result of sexism, patriarchy, and the illuminati which ruined Shepard FOREVER. A second poll was later run, with red-haired Shepard winning.
  • The casting of Jessica Chobot had some declare that they will not buy the game.
  • The entire Mass Effect 2 squad, save for Tali and Garrus, getting Demoted to Extra. Cue fan outrage and accusations of "Team Dextro" getting unfair favoritism.
  • The news that the PC version would require the installation of EA's Origin service ("Can Not Sue" EULA included) is a point of much contention for PC gamers.
  • Someone leaked an early draft of the script, and the Internet got ahold of it. Cue flames.
  • Naturally, there were those who had this reaction after the demo mixed with And the Fandom Rejoiced.
  • Day 1 DLC probably received the most amount of vitriol and bile pre-release.
  • The endings are by far the biggest complaint of the entire series, and fans took to the internet in storm. Further elaboration is in Base Breaker.
  • Just when Bioware thought they had some reprieve from the endless barrage of complaints, this happens. Although character decisions are unaffected by the import, losing the custom Shepard's face has sparked even more passionate discussion. Now that they have fixed it in a patch, people are reporting that their custom Shepard still doesn't look correct.
• The Scrappy:
  • Diana Allers is often hated for the voice actress' bland delivery, limited character development, facial expressions, and connections to IGN that have led to accusations of pandering on Bioware's part. To add to that, Emily Wong, a much more popular reporter, got killed off before the release of the game, prompting cries of Replacement Scrappy. Even worse, her 'romance' is far and away the most shallow in the series.
  • Kai Leng is turning out to be this for a lot of people, mostly due to his ridiculously blatant Cutscene Power to the Max/Story-Driven Invulnerability, his character design (described by some as "Capcom game villain wannabe"), his shallow characterization, and the way he fights (essentially like a powered-up Phantom). And he induces Cutscene Incompetence on everyone around him. Which is worse, really.
  • Two other characters that get a lot of hate are the little boy on Earth and the Catalyst. The kid's hated for poor voice acting and emotional baiting. The Catalyst is hated because the second he shows up, the ending goes off the rails. Plus, the Catalyst is basically a holographic version of the kid, which certainly doesn't help him.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Due to almost every action being mapped to the spacebar, the difference between going into cover, storming, using an item, reviving a squadmate are all mapped to one key. It is quite easy to go into cover when one meant to storm out of the way, or to start reviving a squadmate when one was attempting to leap over a barricade.
  • Ditto with the A button on the Xbox version (and presumably the X button on the Play Station 3).
  • The Galaxy at War mechanic is almost universally despised, since it is impossible to get the perfect ending without playing at least a few hours of multiplayer or one of the IOS apps. Even worse, galactic readiness goes down by itself over time, and to get it up again you have to play even more multiplayer.
• Shocking Swerve: The motivations of the Reapers, and everything about the Catalyst.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: The Citadel DLC has the Armax Arsenal Arena, the Castle Arcade and the Silver Coast Casino, as well as an apartment for you to customize.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Aria's speech in the Omega DLC where Aria will frequently and noticeably teleport around the stage and clip through things.
  • During the prologue, if Shepard looks down on the streets below and zooms in, one can easily notice obvious and poorly drawn 2D renders of people running away from explosions.
  • Shepard wielding an assault rifle (usually an Avenger) during cutscenes when you are not using the weapon or even when you don't even have an assault rifle equipped can come under this.
  • Shepard will have some issues drawing his/her gun at the ends of cutscenes if it's not an assault rifle or pistol.
  • Shepard picks up a rock to give to Tali on Rannoch... and it vanishes in the next shot before it can even change hands.
  • During the final non-combat bits of the game, Shepard's pistol sometimes clips through his/her hand.
  • Shepard's finger often clips through his/her head.
  • Shepard's animation rarely grabs onto the bars correctly when climbing up ladders.
  • The electric sparks from the Pistol Melee Stunner mod continue to appear in cutscenes, even when the gun it's attached to isn't rendered.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Both the Mako and the Hammerhead come in for some verbal abuse during Vega and Cortez's bickering. Bioware has given up on vehicle combat entirely in this game, even when it leaves Shepard dodging Harbinger's blasts ON FOOT. Lucky for him, really; the guys in the tanks died first.
• That One Attack: Destroyers have a couple of them. The first is a laser that instantly kills Shepard. The second is to stomp on Shepard, causing fatal damage. Fortunately, the latter only occurs during the Tuchanka battle.
• That One Level:
  • The final mission. This makes sense, but the fact that the final area is just filled with enemies that can kill you in two hits (2 Banshees with assorted infantry support; 6 Brutes at once, joined later by a Harvester and a Reaper with a Wave Motion Gun) leads to a lot of Game Overs, because the margin for error is approximately zero. If it's any consolation, the cutscene can be triggered without killing every enemy... just most of them.
  • The second part of it is, in some ways, even worse. While you only have to fight three Husks and one Marauder, you have to do so while staggering around, a horrible speed to move at, with awful aim and your opponents need two hits at most to kill you. Regardless of difficulty setting, you'll probably need multiple frustrating tries.
  • Grissom Academy. Tons of Cerberus Guardians, Atlas mechs, turrets and shield pylons; enemies spawn quickly, and it's too early in the game to have the gear that makes them easy to counter. Virtually every room you walk into features Shepard in the open and surrounded by enemies in cover, but that fucking atrium takes the cake. It's almost made up for by the free Atlas you get later in the level.
  • Those murder turrets (and the Combat Engineers who plant them) deserve another mention. A few of them start on top of a ledge just above the door you and your squad comes through, which means you can't reach them fast enough to stop them from dropping turrets. Once planted, these turrets are themselves almost impossible to reach (or even see from where you are), and will tear you to shreds the moment you're within range (which is essentially the entire battlefield since they're on higher ground). There is a high probability that you will suddenly go from full shields to dead without ever knowing where the damn turret that killed you was.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks:
  • The initially released image of the redesign of Ashley Williams has quickly fallen under this; with an Ash who wears her hair down, dresses a more form-fitting attire, and seemingly has a boob job. Some images suggest her skin has lightened.
  • Omnitools being used as a knife has been met with divided opinions, with those who think there's no logical reason for the omniblade to work as a knife (ignoring the fact that it has been used both as a melee weapon and a shield before in the game), or that it doesn't fit in with the aesthetic of Mass Effect.
  • In addition, there have been complaints that the Sentinel's dual omni-blades are unoriginal and don't fit the class. Others have pointed out that it's just cooler that way.
  • And of course, the leaked "New Game" screen where there are three displayed options: Action Mode (which automatically chooses conversation reactions, eliminating the RPG aspect), RPG mode (aka "Standard" mode), and Story Mode (which allows players to focus primarily on the storyline, rather than the combat). To say that this generated Internet Backdraft would be a massive understatement (even though footage shows that the difficulty options are separate from narrative options).
• They Just Didn't Care:
  • The revelation that a photograph of Tali you can obtain after romancing her is just a slightly altered stock photo.
  • Particularly wallbanging due to the fact that Male!Shep, Liara, Samara, Miranda and Diana Allers all used actual models for their appearance. This has lead some fans to question why Jessica Chobot of IGN was fully rendered into 3D despite having very little to do with the story, while Tali, your erstwhile companion for three games, was reduced to a stock photo that had been photoshopped.
    • For comparision, here is a picture of Liz Sroka, Tali's voice actress. If they had to use a photoshopped picture, why not at least hers?
  • The art book that comes with the collector's edition is obviously cut down from the full-size one that's for sale. It wouldn't be obvious except that the text constantly refers to art that isn't in this version.
  • Some of the resolutions to the romances from Mass Effect 2 are coming under fire for this; specifically Jacob's and Thane's. This is true of many of them, as the time spent with the love interests is short, and most of the dialogue is regular, non-romanced friendly dialogue. It shows.
  • Some players also noticed a number of glaring graphical shortcuts for such a big budget game, such as sloppy textures and literal cut-and-paste NPCs.
  • The ending itself which consists of nearly identical scenes with only minor visual alterations for all three choices. In addition, the fact that Shepard's last thought will always be Liara unless you romanced Kaidan or Ashley, no matter what.
• Tough Act to Follow: Even without the controversial endings, this game was doomed to be base breaking. Mass Effect 2 is widely viewed by fans as the best game in the series, so people feeling that this game didn't (or couldn't) live up to the second was inevitable.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: Some defenders of the ending state that it being hard to understand and so open to multiple interpretations is what makes much of its beauty. The developers seem to suggest this with some of their comments, as well. Other comments suggest it was completely unintentional and is supposed to make sense, and promises to 'clarify' the ending seem to confirm this.
• Win Back the Crowd: It seems like the free 'Extended Cut' DLC is an attempt to clear up the problems with the ending.
• Writer Cop Out: The major complaint from those who disliked the ending.

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