Finished ME3 yesterday. Spoilers following.
The hell is with the crappy journal? It never changes to reflect current state of a mission, like when you've acquired the item the mission needs. Certainly, this wasn't much of an issue since people you need to find are all in the Citadel and any items you miss out on can be acquired from the Spectre console. The security checkpoint before war room slows player down so much it's annoying. Fuel. It's next to pointless in ME3 and now there are even fewer fuel depots than there were in ME2. It's just silly because in ME3 there's not much exploration unless you really want to go out of your way to ping every corner of the galaxy. And in the process gain reaper presence, ugh.
As a sequel to ME2, I think ME3 is pretty good game overall. However, on it's own it wouldn't be nowhere as good as ME1 or ME2. The game was completely designed around not having much of any focus on side-missions, you pretty much go to a planet, ping, launch probe, collect. These side missions feel so pointless that I would have preferred they would have been cut out completely, and instead picked a few of them and made them into part of the main missions like Cerberus missions. That would have brought more variety to missions. The game is much more focused on the main mission than any other Bioware game I've played to date. It works for a sequel and final game of the ME trilogy, so it's not much of a handicap. Those who haven't played ME1 and ME2 would probably find this game rather shallow.
I wish they'd have brought out back the level of customization we had in ME1, but this is better than ME2 at least. You really had a lot of choices for your armor, weapons and mods back in ME1. As far as weapon mods in ME3 go, it seems that getting scope and longer barrel is a no brainer. I wondered about the anti-armor mod though, but it seemed to lower base damage too much for my liking. Also, weapon upgrades. I honestly couldn't tell a difference between I and V level Mattock except for how much ammo it could have. I wonder how significant these weapon upgrades were supposed to be. In ME1 though, armor and weapon upgrades could make your team so strong missions became pretty much a cakewalk.
There's not really that much to spend money on, unless you want to get those Spectre weapons. But IMO they're worse than what you get in missions anyway, so what's the point. I think I only bought two armor pieces to maximize my weapon damage, which I think topped out at +50% and weapon upgrades for the weapons I thought were the best in their class. SMG's seemed totally worthless though, even compared to pistols. As for me, Mattock and Widow ftw.
And now the ending. When you confront IM, the last dialogue option gives you paragon/renegade options, but they're both grayed out for me. Even though I SHOULD have maxed out paragon as I completed every mission I found. What the heck is with that? Failing the dialogue check, your only option is to go renegade and shoot IM, there is no paragon option after dialogue. From what I understood, apparently destroying reapers also means destroying the geth, relays and most of technology which would kill a lot of people whose live literally depends on technology. This option is so silly that it's not even an option. Now, who the hell wants to merge organics and synthetics just like that, it's way too abrupt a change to force on everyone. Which leaves the third option, controlling the Reapers. Now, this option apparently saves the geth, relays and tech, so it's the only sensible option out of the three. Especially after it was confirmed Shepard IS able to control the Reapers, unlike IM. But then, what the **** is with the Normandy cutscene, it makes no bloody sense whatsoever. And after credits, what planet is that supposed to be?
Aside of super silly ending options and the even sillier Normandy cutscene at the end, ME3 is a good game if you treat it as a sequel to ME2, which you should. But goddamn it, the ending bugs me SO much. Even more than the silly plot device where you so conveniently find a lead to destroy Reapers right after they attack Earth. As stand-alone games ME1 and ME2 are better than ME3. Don't get me wrong, ME3 has solid improvements in key areas of gameplay, but the complete package leaves something to be desired. ME2 had a ****ty ending with that human reaper and all, but I think ME2 had less faults than ME3 does. But I think ME1 had even less faults than ME2 did, ME1's biggest issue was the inventory system, but other than that it was pretty damn solid, including a good ending.
I could have forgiven a lot of things in ME3, but come on was it really too much to ask to have an ending we could be satisfied with? It just leaves a sour aftertaste. Is ME3 worth buying? Hell yes if you've got ME1 and ME2 and liked them.
