I hated ME3 to death. It got just so much wrong.
If you play Mass Effect for the gunplay, then you can stop reading and go away.
The point of this series is the branching plot, deep characters and the detailed and excellent stories you encounter along the way.
In doing this, Bioware stumbled upon a system that I consider almost genius - the conversation wheel.
It was so simple, yet vastly effective. Questions go on the left, responses go on the right in height order of Paragon to Renegade. The odd special option would turn up if you had enough points to do so.
The problem ME3 ran into was that this system was horribly underused - there's no denying this game was rushed out there.
Many conversations would feature just two options. No questions, no depth of choice - either super nice Shepherd or batshit insane Shepherd. I was constantly left feeling "I didn't want to say that at all".
Plus, sometimes the wheel just disappeared altogether, with scenes of up to five minutes having no conversation options at all. I didn't want to flirt with James Vega, dammit! (And where the fuck did he come from anyway?)
So yeah, great series, but the last one was pushed too far by EA, no doubt. Had the potential to be the new Star Wars.