Pre-Mass-Effect-3-Extended-Cut thoughts

I started writing this before I played the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut (hereafter referred to as ME3EC, and spoilers ahoy). Basically what happened was this:

BioWare put out an incredibly awesome game called Mass Effect that was very clearly meant to be the first game in a franchise.

BioWare was bought by EA.

BioWare/EA put out Mass Effect 2, completely revamping the combat and inventory systems and making a few other changes that were mostly well-recieved.

BioWare/EA put out Mass Effect 3, which, while it had the best combat of the three games, also had way too many (unskippable) cutscenes, curiously flat characters, an extraordinarily tedious second act (and compared to certain loyalty missions in 2, that's saying something), a "normal" difficulty level that was supposed to be harder than it actually was, and an ending that let you die in a red, blue or green explosion depending on which option you took.

It was this last one that pissed off 95% of the fanbase.

And some members of that fanbase decided to take action. In what has to be the most curious form of protest ever, they started a charity drive for a better ending. It worked. EA/BioWare relented and offered us some DLC for free.

Now, I don't know what the fans were expecting. Mostly because I didn't really think that the "problems" with the ending could be fixed by a few extra cutscenes (which, I believed I might have mentioned earlier, the game was already stuffed with). I wanted a final boss, and I wanted Shepard to live.

The first was impossible given the storyline (unless they wanted to just re-hash the Saren-Husk fight from 1) and the second wouldn't really fit with the whole "victory through sacrifice" theme.
The more I thought about the ending in the month and a half since I finished the game, the more I accepted that Shepard pretty much had to die. One of my favorite pieces of fan-art features Jack (though I've seen versions with other love interests) cradling Shepard's broken body in the London ruins. That's really about all the closure I need, honestly.

The rest of it? What happens to the galaxy because of the decisions you made? That's called your legacy. Shepard doesn't get to see it on account of being, y'know, dead. I'm pretty happy to leave that open to your own interpretation.

Right, now to go play the ME3EC.