Maybe I'm just going crazy, but I'm almost certain Zaeed was day 1 dlc with Kasumi following a month later. Both had 0 impact on the story at all. Though to be fair, ME2 had a story? Lair of the Shadow Broker and the Collector Ship was about as exciting as the campaign got in ME2, I still to this day question its glowing reviews after 3 playthroughs.
This ME3 issue is just fans being whiny as always. They act self-entitled as though this is as bad as Capcom having all 12 DLC characters on the disc for SFxTekken. I bought the digital deluxe edition for 55dollars on the PC through legitimate means, I imagine a lot of individuals slamming the game on metacritic probably purchased the game at a similar price but for the standard edition.
Should Bioware be excused? Not really, I'm not advocate for day 1 DLC, but when that DLC is offered at launch with a specific edition just learn to shop around. Don't mean to play devil's advocate here but I also heard ME3s launch price was reduced by $10 at certain retailers, the day 1 dlc is $10. Put the two together.
This is the first time I've felt the need to ever defend a Bioware game, for I'm not fan of SWTOR or DA2 as they were beyond disappointing, but ME3 so far is a massive step up gameplay wise from ME2 and I believe they should be praised for listening to the few people that critiqued ME2's overall shallow package such as myself and not purely be vilified for day 1 dlc. Day 1 DLC which nearly every game has today but consequently said other game's do not get slammed on metacritic's user score.