First, my estimated time elapsed for ME3: 11 hours, 30 minutes.
My estimated time taken to compete the trilogy: 30 hours, 54 minutes.
Now for Citadel.
Citadel is for all intents and purposes "everything the devs wanted to do but could never get away with", the DLC. It is meant for players who have as many squadmates alive as possible. I am liveblogging this DLC because I am curious as to what happens when you play it with a Shepard with a playthrough as botched as Fail Shep's .
I am playing this DLC at the latest point it is available: between completing Sanctuary and before starting the endgame with the assault on Cerberus HQ.
Also, try to remember that virtually every character in this DLC winds up dying horribly during the endgame.
After stopping Udina's coup, Fail Shep received an email from Admiral Hackett, ordering him to return to the Citadel so he can enjoy shore leave while the Normandy gets some upgrades. Anderson gives Fail Shep his awesome Citadel apartment, which acts as the Player Headquarters for this DLC.
Fail Shep explores his new digs and eventually checks his email, whereupon he receives an invitation from Joker to have dinner with him at Ryuusei, a fancy sushi restaurant, complete with a French staff and fish tank floors. Fail Shep and Joker chit chat a bit about how hard it is to leave the Normandy behind. Things start to get weird when Joker thanks Fail Shep for inviting him to Ryuusei.
Maya Brooks, an Alliance Intelligence Analyst, shows up and explains what's going on: someone lured Fail Shep to Ryuusei to kill him. On cue, a bunch of heavily armed mercenaries show up looking for Fail Shep. Fail Shep has Joker leave cover first as bait for one of the mercs. Fail Shep kills that merc with his omniblade and steals his pistol, but Brooks gets dragged off.
Fail Shep manages to get to Brooks, but a merc sniper blows out the fish tank Fail Shep is standing on. Fail Shep manages to survive, but his squadmates will give him shit about this for the rest of the DLC. This segment's gameplay is pretty interesting. Fail Shep only has 1/5 of his health bar and no med kits. His only weapon is the Suppressor Pistol he took from the merc he killed at the start of the fight. The Suppressor is a gimmick weapon: it does horrible damage except for head shots, which do so much damage that most enemies will go down after two shots. It also is completely silent, which is good since the optimal way to handle this segment is to pick off the mercs searching for Fail Shep without giving away your location.
Also, Brooks overdosed on medigel to treat some wounds she took in the fight at Ryuusei, so the advice she gives you during the DLC tends to be rather weird, to put it lightly. Sadly, there aren't any standout examples of this during this mission.
The stealth portion of the mission ends when Fail Shep uses his Spectre status to override a C-SEC lockdown which is preventing him from getting to the nearest shuttle pad. The override sets off some very loud alarms, which means that the mercs now know where he is. To make things worse, this is around the point where the tougher merc enemies start appearing.
Fail Shep Narrative difficulties his way through the fire fight and rendezvous with Liara at the shuttle pad. A C-SEC shuttle shows up to get them to safety, but the shuttle is loaded with mercs. James pulls a Big Damn Heroes and takes the shuttle out with a rocket launcher.
Fail Shep, Liara and James hold the mercs off long enough for Joker to arrive in the Kodiak. Our heroes retreat to the safety of Fail Shep's apartment.
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