I'm sorry but if you didn't notice the loop holes then you can't really have played the games. There are SO many and a lot of them are ridiculously big. The only way I can see anyone not noticing them is if they had only played ME3.

How could your choices have affected it? Ermmm in a million different ways? Why can't my Shep simply refuse to take any of the choices and instead say they will fight the reapers the way they always have? Why he can't he argue and reason with the A.I like he always has? Why doesn't the amount of military strength I have make a difference? Why does the fact I'm paragon or renegade not make even the slightest difference? I played 100 hours+ over 3 games making every single paragon choice I could, someone else played 100 hours+ over 3 games making every single renegade choice. So the endings are......? Oh erm identical.

To Panama if you think the gears of war 2 or God of War 3 endings are comparable to ME3 then you musn't have played them. The endings to those two games are masterpieces compared to the ME3 ending. Seriously even with Bioshock, that people complained had a dreadful ending, I didn't mind too much. I thought it was a slight tone shift but nothing too terrible. An ending the quality of the Bioshock one would be a million times better than the ME3 ending. 

It's pretty telling that the vast majority of people saying ''Oh I don't get how people can be so annoyed about it'' are people who haven't actually played the games.  Especially when they make statements such as they don't see how choices could have affected it. Look at the ending of ME2. The choices you make, how ready you are and even how quickly you went to the final mission make HUGE differences. Likewise you can make a very big moral choice that had big implications for the third game (well at least it seemed so at the time). 

Edit: For d21lewis. If your Shep dies at the end of two then you cannot import him to ME3. For your character that is it. He is dead and his story is finished. Your only choice is to start a new character. So yea it pretty massively affects the game because for your Shep there is no ME3 lol, he is gone. 

Again, I'm not very far into ME3 but I wonder what people expected. Even a game like inFamous offered a lot of choices but how many endings could there have been? These games are limited by the creators. They have to record audio, motion capture, and everything else for these endings that 1/3 of the audience will never see. It's not like Chrono Trigger where you can just switch some text around. People may have come into this with unrealistic expectations. I'd love a butterfly effect where the drink I got at the bar in ME2 was the difference whether the universe lives or died but that just can't be the case.

*future me will likely side with all of the pissed of fans, though*

You can't import a save file where Shepherd died.

It wouldn't have been that hard to have some texts appear after the ending credits that explained the outcomes of some of the major decisions, like the ones telling you what happens to your companions in Jade Empire. Instead we get this.

Oh that's fucked up.  They said the story would still go on!!

I've sort of made this argument. In ME1, you seemingly can decide whether the council lives or dies which seems to have big implications for ME2. But, It doesn't.

See here's the thing. I think Bioware botched it for themselves a bit. because the endings do differentiate. Depending on the readyness rating which is dependant on prior decisions in mass effect games. It affects the outcome of the ending, and isn't a simple button press. So what they said wasn't really a lie, just misleading.

http://www.justpushstart.com/2012/03/mass-effect-3-endings-guide/

The problem is, is that you have less direct control, if you just max out the readiness rating. Your decisions of the past just come down to a small number which can be nullified by playing multiplayer for an hour. 

All you could really control, in ME2  at the end was who lived or died (which you can in ME3 mostly, and entire races, but this occurs throughout the entire game, which you could argue is better), and whether you give the destroy the collectors base (just like whether or not you save the council, just like what outcome you press in 3). 

I'm not arguing plotholes, as there some in the ending and through out. I'm arguing (possibly for the sake of arguing :P), and that ME3's plot devices was the norm for bioware. 

That's not the case... everyone know you can decide any path in Zelda and at the end receive the same END.

Mass Effect is suppose to be a game with player choice to change the END of epic adventure.

you can do that at most theatres. In fact yu can do this almost any where. Wether it be a restauraunt, or retail establishment. Many companies prefer to keep a customer happy and loose out on one sale to get them to keep coming back.

I admit, that would have been nice. I don't understand why the Mass Relays had to explode for every ending but I think the boy race/ascended being had something to do with that. I think a lot of the negativity around the ending is simply because it's quite an unhappy ending. Nobody wants Shephard to die nor the systems with mass relays to be destroyed. Also I don't know if Earth was necessarily destroyed since Sol's Mass Relay is so far away past even Pluto.

I am getting absolutely sick of people accusing me of not playing/not liking the ME series JUST because I don't agree with them. 

http://www.trueachievements.com/Mass-Effect-2-xbox-360.htm?gamerid=44686

http://www.trueachievements.com/Mass-Effect-xbox-360.htm?gamerid=44686

I played ME2 about a year ago and ME about 3 years ago so like all TV shows, movies and games I only remember some of the really big events that happened. And like I said, so many awesome games and TV shows have plot holes but that doesn't make them bad. You guys are nitpicking EVERYTHING simply because you didn't like the ending.

The ending in ME2 hardly had any choice either...do you save the collector base or destroy it.

meant to edit not reply.