I both agree and disagree.
The main issue I had with the final few chapters was the difficulty. It went from a decently challenging game to one that devolved into frustrating fire-fights, especially with the insane human-ish creatures.
However, I strongly disagree with the your comment on the lack of set-pieces. Shambala was not only among the best in the game visually (perhaps of any action game), but the scene where you're sliding down the mountain on the side of the building shooting at mercenaries all the while was insane. Running across the falling bridge in the end was also incredible.
As far as the actual ending cinematic goes, I thought it was damn near perfect. The dialogue between Nate and Elena was just superb.
Edit: Looking at the topic title, I'm not really sure why I spoiler-tagged. Oh well.
