I'm shocked that it's just the ending which caused so much controversay. It seems like Bioware is trying to offer something for every age group when this is a MATURE game. Childish teenager like dialogue, generic jersey shore squadmate, etc. I just got through the part you meet up with Jack and before we get back on the normandy there is a scene where Jack is about to swear and the scene stops before she can. This was beyond childish and frankly insulting to my maturity. Pointless censorship. I don't care that she didn't swear but she was about to and the game just cuts it off. I'm guessing it was intended for humor purposes and it failed miserably. 

This is still a great game but there is so much wrong and it's a huge step down compared to the previous. Replace old interesting squadmates with a guy more generic than Jacob? Check. Try to appeal to every audience when it's rated mature? Check. Make things much more linear? Check. Get rid of most the RPG elements and almost turn into a full on 3rd person shooter? Check. Lazy level design? Check. Throw in waves and waves of enemies where at times you literally have to run away somewhere and wait till your health goes up? Check. Dumb down most of the abilities? Check.

Carry over your characters level from the previous game but somehow you can't carry over a ton of credits? Check. Make some random little kid dying some big deal when millions upon millions died? check. Most of the choices don't matter much? Check. Rip off consumers with day one DLC and overpriced DLC? check. Make sure your relationship doesn't matter much at all? Check. No cameos for a ton of characters from the previous games?  Check. Strip away most of what previous games great? CHECK

I just had to get this off my chest. I'll reserve complete judgment of the game until I finish it but wow.....how could Bioware do this? 

What i didn't like apart from the things you mentioned was mostly the bleak depressing setting of the game.

it's like you are constantly on the run, always being chased, everyone is always a step ahead of you and you never catch a break. and if you manage to do anything it is always under heavy losses.

and the constant never tiring reiteration that you have to keep fighting to the end no matter what, it just becomes meaningless after a while, especially since that's all they talk about again in what felt like 15 hours when you meet everyone before the showdown.

i really would have liked if they had given us half the game to prepare before the arrival of the Harvesters with a lighter tone like ME2 and then have a all out war in the second half when they actually arrive.

Well to be honest, I liked the game, but it is NOTHING compared to ME2 in my opinion. ME3 is a competent game, but 2 was just pure excellence for me. ME3 seemed a lot easier too, even on Insanity. I blazed through the campaign in less than a week even with my school schedule. ME2 took me weeks, and there were points where I just put the controller down and took the disc out in frustration. Almost every enemy had health + armor + shields/barriers at a certain point!

I didn't have much issue with the ending, but I had issues with other areas as you pointed out. Some of them are technical issues (PS3). Also, the game just felt a bit lifeless to me at times. I have no clue why the took out the loyalty missions from the series. They made ME2 very interesting. I understand ME3's storyline is the 'critical path', but at times it felt bare boned. If the DLC was supposed to make up for that then I guess that's typical of EA. :/

Anyway for me ME2 > ME > ME3

Hopefully the next installment will have more improvements and be more like 2 than 3.

I wouldn't have liked that at all. I mean you repel them twice in the first and second game respectively. Doing the same thing again for a third time but failing, (the war had to happen) would be too repetitive and makes the first 2 games somewhat redundant because it would be such a similar experience.

Agree on some of the other points you made though.

LOL!!! I said the same think when I saw James; I was like "did they pull this guy off from the jersey shore?"

the ending isn't as bad as the game itself

After Mass Effect 1, nothing was the same.

The most disappointing feature of me3 was the lack of choice impact from previous games.

EC + Leviathan DLC fix the ending, mostly.

Welcome to roughly this time last year I guess?

Mass Effect is overrated,at least 2 and 3,never played 1.