History YMMV / Masseffect3

** To some degree, the Control ending. While still not well liked as much as Destroy, over the years support for the Control ending grew enough for a not insignificant amount of people to cease negatively comparing it to the Synthesis ending. Part of this is the fact that the only reason most people initially hated it was its association with Cerberus and The Illusive Man's evil motive, naturally disinclining many fans from liking it. Others grew to realize that much of the nay-saying from other fans about Shepard becoming a Reaper Overlord eventually due to a "Power Corrupts" belief was unsubstantiated by the actual plot of 3 or ending of Control. In fact, Control being the only ending that doesn't have the potential to make any player choices irrelevant[[note]]The Geth and EDI die in Destroy, making any choice related to their happiness or survival pointless. Synthesis cures the Genophage even if you made sure it couldn't be throughout the trilogy[[/note]] is noted as the best thing about it.

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct:
** 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 Creator/JenniferHale in this game.

** EnsembleDarkhorse Kal'Reegar only appears in a single email stating they were KilledOffscreen. Considering how beloved the character is, it feels like a waste.

* AccidentalAesop: A minor one about the differences between the private and state sectors shows up in the construction of the second ''Normandy'' and how the Alliance reacts to it. Overall, the second ''Normandy'' is a superior version of the original SSV, being built in about half the time, and boasts several amenities (like leather seats). However, Engineer Adams mentions that it took ''months'' for them to bring the SR-2 up to Alliance code because Cerberus cut corners ''everywhere''. The private sector may be fast and technically impressive, but they tend to be rushed and filled with errors; the state sector may be slow and bureaucratic, but they take their time and have [=OSHA=] standards.

** A new one appears in ''Legendary Edition''. The original games ran at 30 frames per second on 7th generation consoles. ''Legendary Edition'' allows 8th gen consoles to run at 4K resolution or 60 FPS; 9th edition consoles and high end PCs run at 4K, 60 FPS. The issue is that the prerendered cutscenes were rendered at 30 FPS to match the originals' frame rate. But since Commander Shepard's features are determined by the player, any cutscene where Shepard isn't wearing a face-concealing helmet has to be rendered in-engine, using the modern frame rate. This makes sequences like the final mission that cut quickly between prerendered and in-engine shots ''very'' obvious about what's going on, distracting from a lot of the drama.

** Udina was seen as this for a lot of people, who did not like his attitude in the first and second game. He's getting the job done, putting in work and generally being useful. [[spoiler:Then you get to [[KickTheSonOfABitch 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 [[TearJerker Earth]].]]

** The final showdown with Kai Leng. He may have gotten CutscenePowerToTheMax in your previous sequences, but both the fight and its [[KickTheSonOfABitch aftermath]] are outstandingly satisfying. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdTtDk4UEnU music]] is pretty awesome too.

* DisappointingLastLevel: The final mission in London. Scenerywise, London looks like most other wrecked cities from any other game at the time of release, being very grey and dusty, dominated by a dull blue lighting scheme, and many assets and scenery pieces sees quite a bit of conspicuous repeated reuse throughout the level. The vast majority of gameplay sees the player advancing down very linear corridors while fighting hordes of enemies, which is sporadically broken up by the occasional turret section or HoldTheLine battle, and at no point are there any significant twists to this formula. Few of the War Assets appear onscreen, and the game lacks a final boss, or at least a unique finale that could have been unique. Instead, the final combat sequence is yet another lengthy hold the line battle, against powerful enemies while the player has to dodge a OneHitKO Reaper beam. It feels more like a frustrating and difficult slog, than a challenging and satisfying experience.

** The final opponent of the game, [[spoiler:a Marauder you shoot while limping to the beam in London, has been named [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=467pmIX-oZo Marauder Shields]] and]] is gaining a large fanbase. He tried to [[spoiler:[[http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o4/Vulpix1000/motivator48cfb4eb2d9b0e12556e3209267450038685b648.jpg save us from the ending]]]]. [[spoiler: [[http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0zlheV62H1rrlnm8o1_1280.jpg We must]] [[http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/268/801/23f.jpg honor]] [[http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/269/187/6d3.jpg his noble sacrifice]].]]

** The [[spoiler: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?]]

* TheScrappy:
** Diana Allers is widely hated by players for what comes across as a blatant case of trying to ensuring a good review from IGN for including Jessica Chobot (one of their reviewers) in the game. Ignoring that, her voice acting is pretty poor (Jessica Chobot is not an actor), she's a FlatCharacter in a game that acts as the finale of a trilogy of games, and she replaces the fanfavorite Emily Wong, who is killed in a promotional Twitter campaign promoting the game's release. Barring Wong, a good alternative would have been Khalisah al-Jilani, who already undergoes CharacterDevelopment in this game, is a war asset in her own right that increases in value if Shepard never punches her and takes the Paragon interrupt here, and thus would have been an excellent choice as the Normandy's war reporter in her own right. Even worse, her "romance" is far and away the most shallow in the series, and is basically just an IncrediblyLamePun about reporters getting "exclusives". Saying that there should be an option to throw her out of the Normandy's airlock even became a minor meme on ''Mass Effect'' related message boards.
** Kai Leng is hated mostly due to his ridiculously blatant CutscenePowerToTheMax[=/=]StoryDrivenInvulnerability, his character design (described by some as "Capcom game villain wannabe"), his shallow characterization, the way he fights (essentially like a heavily nerfed Phantom), and inducing CutsceneIncompetence on everyone around him.
** Two characters that get a lot of hate are the little boy on Earth and [[spoiler: the Catalyst]]. The kid's hated for poor voice acting and emotional baiting. [[spoiler: The Catalyst]] is hated because he's more or less the reason we have this whole argument about the endings. Plus, [[spoiler:the Catalyst is basically a holographic version of the kid, which certainly doesn't help either of them]].

* PortingDisaster: The UsefulNotes/WiiU 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. Worse still because you can only start the game using the limited choices in the comic provided its impossible to get the ME2 Golden ending choices, this limits the ammount of story possiblities you have access to. Notably you can't have the Normandy crew and most of the suicide team still alive which closes off literally dozens of plots depending on your choices at the start of the game. The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 port was also pretty bad on release with the game almost always hard-freezing during two specific cutscenes and the framerate tanking on some visual-intensive events, but patches eventually bought it up to being about almost as fast as the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 version.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: Some defenders of the endings stated that it being hard to understand and so open to multiple interpretations is what made much of its beauty. Some of the developers seemed to suggest this with some of their comments, as well. However, other comments suggest it was completely unintentional and it was supposed to make sense, and the ''Extended Ending'' DLC seem to confirm this.

* HellIsThatNoise:
** The beep. beep. beepbeepbeepbeepbeepBOOM of grenades. Especially on higher difficulties.
** InUniverse, both the Reaper "[[https://youtu.be/nPQdOUCiTU8 horn]]" and the Banshee [[https://youtu.be/1gL4XqkQOFU scream]] are noted to be sources of NightmareFuel.
-->''"Why make them yell?! That's totally uncalled for!"''

* AccidentalAesop: A minor one about the differences between the Private Sector and the State Sector shows up in the construction of the second ''Normandy'' and how the Alliance reacts to it. Overall, the second ''Normandy'' is a superior version of the original SSV, being built in about half the time, and boasts several amenities (like leather seats). However, Engineer Adams mentions that it took ''months'' for them to bring the SR-2 up to Alliance code because Cerberus cut corners ''everywhere''. The Private Sector may be fast and technically impressive, but they tend to be rushed and filled with errors; the State Sector may be slow and bureaucratic, but they take their time and have [=OSHA=] standards.

** [[spoiler: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?[[note]]Her boyfriend, Charr, is dead by the time you discover him in ''Mass Effect 3''.[[/note]]]]

** At release, there were exactly two kinds of characters in the multiplayer environment: Human Vanguards, and [[TierInducedScrappy characters who never earned any score]]. [[GrievousHarmWithABody Biotic Charge]] provide ridiculous mobility, it + [[CastFromHitPoints Nova]] + a shotgun provide ridiculous burst damage, both are spammable, and both are ''super'' useful for landing last hits (IE becoming a {{killsteal}}ing son of a bitch, often unintentionally). Even better, instead of taking the sensible route and {{nerf}}ing them, Bioware simply made them the new standard for power levels and built the post-release classes along similar lines.

* TierInducedScrappy:
** From the low tier in multiplayer, Drell Vanguards due to it unimpressive damage output and fragile health and lack of any way to compensate it (at least until gears showed up, but even then there are still more useful biotic classes). Many Volus characters also fall into this category, but they delve into JokeCharacter territory, so they get a free pass most of the time. Some veteran players also despise the Alliance Infiltration Unit, Turian Ghost Infiltrator, and Geth Juggernaut, due to their mechanics that act as crutches for bad play. The two former classes are infiltrators, but also have grenade-like consumables that automatically self-revives when active and grants a ton of shields in a pinch, respectively. The Juggernaut has a ton of base shields in general and is immune to sync-kills, and players often spec for even more durability at the cost of pitiful damage output.
** Of particular high tier example is the [[ComicBook/IronMan "War Machine" Geth Juggernaut build]] (named so for its unkillability, and ability to fire massive amounts of Siege Pulses), which essentially focuses on maximum recharge speed, and speccing Siege Pulse up to maximum damage. Suddenly you have a walking anti-everything platform that's immune to bullets walking around the battlefield. It sounds good, until you remember that Siege Pulse is both tracking and explosive, so more often than not, the Juggernaut will end up (accidentally or on purpose) stealing points and kills from others. Averted on higher difficulties, where a War Machine is a welcome sight due to actually being able to both take hits and dish out damage. Bonus Points for using Red and Gold or Silver color schemes.

** The Cerberus Dragoons in multiplayer. They are pretty simple, they [[AttackAttackAttack just charge into close combat and attack]]. However, their armor means that they can generally survive long enough to get there, they move much more quickly than most armored units, and though slow their melee attack involves a DeadlyLunge with [[WhipItGood charged lashes]] that can [[HerdHittingAttack hit in a wide area]] and does an unpleasant amount of damage. Alone they are not too dangerous, but they have a habit of flushing you out of cover and forcing you to focus on them while other forces move around to flank you and get entrenched.

** The ''original'' endings, with the fate of the galaxy left largely unclear and the possibility of [[spoiler: the Normandy's crew dying on the alien planet]], plus a plot hole that implied that [[spoiler:every army Shephard rallied to his side would probably starve to death on Earth without the Mass Relays]], left many fans scratching their heads at best. The free Extended Cut DLC expands upon many of the issues surrounding these endings, and [[spoiler: clarifies that the Normandy's crew survives and repaired the ship]], as well as [[spoiler: offering a fourth "Refusal" ending wherein Shepard chooses none of the above, their army is destroyed, and the galaxy falls to the Reapers, but the civilizations of the next cycle will be victorious against the Reapers thanks to Shepard's efforts to warn them. The worst version of the Destroy ending is back to the original, with some added lines about just how screwed everyone will be.]]

** Diana Allers is widely hated by players for what comes across as a blatant case of trying to ensuring a good review from IGN for including Jessica Chobot (one of their reviewers) in the game. Ignoring that, her voice acting is pretty poor (Jessica Chobot is not an actor), she's a FlatCharacter in a game that acts as the finale of a trilogy of games, and she replaces the fanfavorite Emily Wong, who is killed in a promotional Twitter campaign promoting the game's release. Barring Wong, a good alternative would have been Khalisah al-Jilani, who already undergoes CharacterDevelopment in this game, is a war asset in her own right that increases in value if Shepard never punches her and takes the Paragon interrupt here, and thus would have been an excellent choice as the ''Normandy'''s war reporter in her own right. Even worse, her "romance" is far and away the most shallow in the series, and is basically just an IncrediblyLamePun about reporters getting "exclusives". Saying that there should be an option to throw her out of the ''Normandy'''s airlock even became a minor meme on ''Mass Effect'' related message boards.

** [[ItsAllAboutMe Henry Lawson]] is an egomaniacal businessman and scientist obsessed with having a dynasty. To that end, Henry creates DesignerBabies based off of his DNA. Viewing them only as tools, he [[AbusiveParents controls them their entire lives]], molding them to meet his expectations, such as he did with Miranda Lawson. Should any of them be subpar, Henry [[OffingTheOffspring kills them]]. When he appears, Henry is working with the Illusive Man in using the refugee camp, Sanctuary, as a front for gathering test subjects to study Reaper Indoctrination. Thousands of civilians are experimented on, including children, resulting in either their deaths or their being turned into husks. Unlike the rest of Cerberus, who are trying to help humanity, Lawson is only committing atrocities to save his own life and to have future generations idolize him. When he's cornered by Shepard, Henry uses his younger daughter, Oriana, as a HumanShield, and, depending upon the player's actions, he can end up killing either Oriana or Miranda.

** A [[https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/s1qt4/ashleys_deleted_scene_from_the_me3_script_using/ deleted scene]] between Ashley and Shepard where the former ask the later about their experioence of being dead, with Shepard answering that they don't remember anything at all. It got far enough to be in the game's script but was never actually implemented, which many players consider a waste as it would have been a great insight into both Ashley's character (considered to be poorly written in the rest of the game) as well as Shepard's (since the subject of them being ''actually dead'' and their feelings about it are never really brought up until the game's second-to-last mission).

** Diana Allers is widely hated by players for what comes across as a blatant case of trying to ensuring a good review from IGN for including Jessica Chobot (one of their reviewers) in the game. Ignoring that, her voice acting is pretty poor (Jessica Chobot is not an actor), she's a FlatCharacter in a game that acts as the finale of a trilogy of games, and she replaces the fanfavorite Emily Wong. Even worse, her "romance" is far and away the most shallow in the series, and is basically just an IncrediblyLamePun about reporters getting "exclusives". Saying that there should be an option to throw her out of the ''Normandy'''s airlock even became a minor meme on ''Mass Effect'' related message boards.

* AssPull: [[spoiler:The reveal of Catalyst and, by extension, the Reapers' motivation was infamously criticized by numerous players for coming pretty much of out of nowhere and clashing with some of the pre-established lore. The Catalyst introducing itself as the Reaper's controlling intelligence conflicts quite a bit with Sovereign's claim from the first game that the Reapers had no controller but was a race of "nations" united around a common goal. The fact that the Catalyst resides inside the Citadel, and in fact claims that it is "part" of him, is especially egregious, as it begs the question of why the whole Vanguard Reaper system, which the plot of the first game was centered around, was even needed to shut down the Relay Network in the first place, if the intelligence in charge of the Reapers was inside the Citadel the whole time and persumably had some sort of control over the station.]]

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** Contrary to Creator/BioWare's claim that the Extended Cut wouldn't change the endings and would only "expand and clarify the current endings", the new endings include numerous changes, most notably that [[spoiler:the Mass Relays are no longer completely destroyed in every ending and the Normandy no longer gets stranded, though this depends on the EMS]]. While the Extended Cut managed to make endings acceptable for a sizable amount of fans, an equal number of them are still unsatisfied, or even downright angrier at the extended explanations, seeing them more as an attempt to HandWave away the issues fans had with the endings, rather than addressing them.
** The ''Leviathan'' DLC offers much more information about the origins of the Reapers and the Catalyst.
** The ''Citadel'' DLC gives players more content with Wrex and the rest of the ''Mass Effect 2'' squad, to address complaints that ''[=ME3=]'' and other [=DLC=] largely ignored squad members. It also resolves one of the other major complaints of the original ending which persisted even after the Extended Cut, by giving players a proper chance to say goodbye to their squad.
** For fans who don't wish to play the multiplayer to increase your readiness, it's now possible to do it in N7 HQ thanks to ''Mass Effect'' Datapad's features being moved in. The thresholds were also lowered enough that it's possible to hit the highest readiness bracket entirely within the singleplayer campaign (though it does require importing a save through the entire trilogy).
** Players who romanced Thane or Jacob in ''Mass Effect 2'' were highly disappointed in how their romances were given the short end of the stick in ''Mass Effect 3'' and essentially [[CuttingOffTheBranches cut out]] (Thane will [[spoiler:die in a HeroicSacrifice]] after only the possibility of a brief rekindling, and Jacob will have met a new woman and breaks up with Shepard). The ''Citadel'' [=DLC=] alleviates this a bit by giving players who romanced Thane [[spoiler:a series of VideoWills]] from him as well as [[spoiler:a vision where he says he will [[TogetherInDeath wait for Shepard on the other side]]]], and players who romanced Jacob will be given the opportunity to have a post-breakup talk with him and potentially bury the hatchet.
** After three games of build-up, the reveal of Tali's face in ''3'' was seen as massively underwhelming. [[spoiler:Instead of being revealed in a cutscene her face was revealed in a lazily photoshopped stock image of a real-life person obscured by a lens flare and set in an environment that contradicts what's been established about quarians in the lore.]] In the ''Legendary Edition'' remaster [[spoiler:while her face still isn't shown in a cutscene, the picture she gives Shepard shows her in her suit, unmasked, with her face fully rendered in game,]] making it a marked improvement.
** Bioware received some criticism over the first two games for only including {{Gay Option}}s [[DoubleStandard for women]], and their claim that "[[DiscountLesbians asari don't count]]" only angered their lesbian fans. This game introduced human love interests for gay players of both genders and, foreseeing the criticism they would get if male {{Gay Option}}s were restricted to new characters and [=NPCs=][[note]]a concern that turned out to be prescient after ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' recieved heavy backlash for initially restricting its male {{Gay Option}}s to [=NPCs=][[/note]], gave gay male players the option of a RelationshipUpgrade with a returning male squadmate.
** The BeastlyBloodsports aspect of [=ME2's=] Varren fighting pit on Tuchanka gets toned down significantly by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjMYWwSx8g0 a background conversation]] in ''Citadel''. Apparently, Varren manage to fight using those massive fangs without actually injuring each other...

* {{Wangst}}: Liara can come across as this during Priority Thessia. Its understandable she would be devastated seeing her home world being torn apart by the Reapers, and feeling helpless to stop it, but she spends almost every part of it whining about how upset the situation makes her, or how much she wants to save it somehow in "Come on Shepard, we HAVE to save Thessia". By the time you get to the final section, she's basically been crying over Thessia's situation the entire mission except for when you try to find the Prothean artifacts in the temple. This would be fine, if she wasn't the only character to do so in this way; none of the other party members act in such a way during any of the missions they are involved with, the closest being Tali if you let the quarians die for valid reasons at that point, so Liara comes across as overly whiny about her home planet, when ''everyone else'' is having the same problems, but do their best to stay strong.