The first is that the human reaper is really, really cheesy. There's no discernible reason for the reapers to make their ships look like their enemies - how was that thing going to look if it was flying through space? And why haven't we seen other reapers that look different from the standard one? Inexplicable and cheesy. But I was lost in the moment and let it slide.

The other thing, and there was an RPS piece about it, is that the game hypes up the mission as a suicide mission, but you are probably not going to die and most of your crew probably won't, either. I think most people spent the time to max out their crew loyalty (or just about) and got most of the ship upgrades (or just about). Then you'll have all or most of your team ready for the final confrontation. If you pay attention to what is being asked in each situation, it's relatively easy to figure out which crew members should do which part so they don't die. And so your suicide mission ends with you losing one or two or none of the crew. It was still a blow to the gut to lose Moridin for me, but that was because I was dumb (Moridin earlier even says he shouldn't "hold the line" but I left him holding the line).

This will sound like quite the cop-out but I fully expect a some amount of cheesiness in my sci-fi storytelling. Mass Effect as a series was built on moments of pure over-the-top greatness mixed with cinematic drama, that's what makes it great. It combined both styles unapologetically, fighting off human reapers and people being cloned inside plant monsters that mind-control colonists is just as awesome as riding in at the head of a human fleet to save (or damn) the entire social and political structure of a galaxy.

The RPS piece was very well written on the second point, and in a sense I agree. Everyone keeps telling you it's a suicide mission but that really isn't delivered very well in the game's narrative. You're encouraged to take as much time as you want in building your team and gaining their trust, and there's never much sense of urgency (until the IFF mission but by then we're already 2/3 in). It's more due to the fact that as a game, Mass Effect 2 has an incredibly bloated middle act during which you have unlimited time to do whatever you wanted. If the count down began after you boarded the collector ship instead of after you obtained the IFF, it would put the player in a position where he had to pick and choose who was gonna be loyal, since there's no way he could do all the missions without consequence. This is something i hope is fixed for ME3

I guess that to anyone without Shephard's unique abilities it was a suicide mission and right down to the very last cinematic of him jumping into the ship, it is clear that a lesser person would have died by this point. I agree that I never truly felt like I would end up dying, and I understand that it is highly unlikely that many people do go that way, but at the same time I can see why the Devs would make it rather difficult to die. The whole point of Shephard is that he is too good for death. Personally only 4 of my crew members made it out alive (Jack, Mordin, Miranda and Samara, with Jack being the only one I actively used of those), but that was because I was curious to see what would happen if I intentionally didn't do all the loyalty missions and made a couple of bad choices.

My biggest criticism of the game was the whole meet-up-with-Liara-again-only-to-run-chores-for-her-and-find-she-doesn't-really-care thing. That quite annoyed me and it felt like a part of the game that was something of an afterthought.

Personally I don't have a huge problem with the mission not being as difficult as advertised, it's just I understand where the complaints are coming from about it. It would be cool to make some choices more meaningful (sacrifice Shepard to save the crew, or the crew to save Shepard?) but I think the ending was fine anyway.

As for Liara, I wonder if it was underdone to set up the DLC they're releasing. The whole thing felt pretty off, partly because I could only ever find 4 of the 5 parts of the logic puzzle and always got it wrong, and partly because Liara had a different voice actor. Really, them skimping on that section of the game makes me less interested in Liara-centric DLC.

Personally, I think that the suicide mission was too short. I mean, you are attacking the Collector HOMEWORLD. You should have to fight through much, much, more. Plus I really like APG's idea of the "sacrifice one to save the others" idea. I also wish I could go more places in the Citadel.

I too feel that letting you get away completely from the end without anyone dying robbed the supposed 'suicide mission' of a deeper emotion. Plus once again the whole sense of urgency in the midgame was undercut by the leisurely ability to do missions.