Finally played the game many consider to be the best (series) ever and I have to say I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Controls

The Controls in this game are God awful. I remember reading someone once say the controls for this game was better than that of Uncharted. Awesome I thought, I found the controls to the Uncharted series  weird but once I got the hang of it, it felt great. Dare I say perfect even. Why? Because controlling Drake didn't feel like trying to turn a tank whilst standing it on a pin head.
I can think of at least a dozen times in my last play session alone where I ended up yelling profanities at FemShep simply because she wouldn't turn when I needed her to. But you might argue that well, she's in a shit ton of armour, that thing ain't easy to move in, it's more realistic that way.
Oh yeah? Then how do you explain her movement in Civilian clothing? All you have to do is look at her sprint animation to know that something is not entirely right.
Speaking of sprinting, why can't I change directions mid sprint? Having to come to a complete halt, change direction, then start sprinting again is annoying. I would happily settle for a loss of speed when changing direction not coming to a dead halt.

Additionally: What is up with Sheppard's inability to stay in cover? I place her in cover so I can blind fire, it's 50/50 whether or not she'll stay there. Just general shuffling along cover is difficult because once again, either the camera screws with you or you pop out without warning. Quite a few times I end up pleading with FemShep just to stay in cover as instructed, completely ignoring the hail of bullets pelting her.

Speaking of ignoring bullets.

A.I

Admittedly, the A.I for the enemy is quite good and when they want to be, so can your allies, I do however have to raise issues with Allies occasionally completely ignoring the enemy standing right behind them, peppering them with bullets.

Or allies standing in spot A,
gets killed,
revived,
remains in spot A,
gets killed in A,
revived,
 killed in A again,
 gets told to move to B,
 ignores order,
gets killed in A

Whilst we are in the middle of a "boss" encounter. In the end, I gave up trying to revive Liara and just went on with the fight on my own, why? Well, because James fucked off out of the battle field whilst I was trying to revive Liara. Turns out, his character never loaded in that area to begin with.

Speaking of loading, what's up with some characters just randomly missing from cut scenes? First time I meet Garrus, the camera cuts to him and nothing there. I thought that was on purpose and thought nothing of it, it wasn't until the invisible man spoke until I realised oh, his model didn't load. Sadly, it's not just Garrus who occasionally doesn't load, it's happened to a lot of people quite a few times. (for the record, I was playing digital version not disc)

Story

Okay I admit it, I've only played MS3, not 1 or 2 but the story is not as great as everyone makes out to be. There isn't one continous narrative, either that or it doesn't make sense. Reapers are meant to be this menace and those big sky scrapping bug shaped are meant to be walking curb stompers. If they are so mean and awesome, why is it that upon leaving and returning weeks later, earth is still standing? from my understanding of their sheer strength and awesomeness, it should have been a walk in the park for one giant bug to take over London. Simply because earth weapons have no effect on them unless you aim in a particular way. Time and time again we see the allies perform more dakka on the bugs but litterally to no effect. But yet, they don't use their strength to walk over everything.

Yes, earth had a resistance and some people were able to go into hiding blah blah blah, but on the long run, the amount of time it took Sheppard to galavant through the galaxy running errands (REALLY, THAT IS ALL SHE DOES IN THIS GAME, RUN ERRANDS FOR PEOPLE) The Reapers should really have taken over Earth, I really don't see how they managed it. (okay, it might be because their ground troops really suck, yes I'm looking at you Husks)

The whole "alliance won't help us, so we need to go beg them in person" explaination didn't really wash with me. It just felt like an excuse to go do a bunch of fetch quests.

Ending

I've seen lots of people complain about the ending before, when I saw it originally (without playing the game,) it seemed fine to me. But after seeing it again in context (i.e after playing the game) it raises up a huge question. WHERE THE HELL IS MY TEAM?! No, not post-game or during the ending, I mean where the hell are they at any given time?

I'll explain. We are in the middle of a war against an enemy that attacks in hordes, I have amassed a team of badasses, each one more badass than the other, yet I only take 2? What the hell are the others doing Whilst I'm getting shot at? I mean, I know what Liara and James are doing. Liara is dying every 5 seconds waiting for me to revive her and James...no, I actually don't know what he's doing.

Barring the nice 1 to 1 we had before the last fight with each team, there was nothing telling me at any point what they were up to or why I wasn't allowed to bunch all of us together. Maybe it's just me but I would have liked some form of acknowledgement for their absence, e.g I'm team one and the reason of my chooseable characters are team 2. Whilst I'm doing my mission, they are offer somewhere else doing another part of the same mission, with the two of us communicating to accomplish our goals. Maybe it's just me, doing that would have been a better touch.

Speaking of the ending, right before we get taken up by the blue light-

2 questions.

1: Where did my allies go? We were told rush the light, massive explosion then...nothing,Liara and James disappear LITERALLY OFf THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Not one word from either of them...wtf?

2: How did I end up in Civillian clothing? I seem to recall charging at the light with full body armour on, helmet and everything, blue light-- civvies...huh?

Starchild/reaper controller, whatever his name is

If this is because I haven't played the previous 2 games then I apologise but who the fuck is he? At no point in MS3 was he ever said to be of any importance, big whoop FemShep had dreams about him running in a burnt out field/forrest that...that doesn't explain anything. This to me feels like a Deus EX Machina. At no point does Sheppard go "hey! You're the kid from my dreams, what's up with that?" Or "Aren't you the kid I saw back on earth? Why were you there?". It just seems like, well, we needed someone to explain the ending to the player  Sheppard, so we use this random kid. 

I'm assuming the child was just a projection and not how the controller actually looks, then a great chance was missed to have the porjection be the character you "loved" the most. i.e the person you dated or the ally you used the most. or simply shifting between all the faces you've met/lost during your travels etc, something else would have been better in my opinion.

And to the actual ending itself...I couldn't bring myself to care. All the problems I listed above with regards to the story made me not care. Sheppard being able to control/destroy Reapers seemed imaterial to me because it was only in that last 5mins that we actually get their motive. Again I apologise if this was touched on in previous games. I'm guessing it wasn't due to Sheppard's like of reaction to the revelation.

If she didn't care, why should I?

Although, I am curious to know if Joker managed to get off with EDI in the end, she said she kissed him good luck but now we'll never know if they got togehter, brittle bones and all.

I dated Sam in my play through, I would have at least liked one final conversation with her before Sheppard snuffed it, this goes back to the idea of the controller projection taking the shape of loved ones.

So in summary, whilst the actual ending left a lot to be desired, it was the stuff before hand that was uninspired.

To counter all the negative in this thread, I will say I enjoyed the soundtrack. The main theme is pretty sweet.

You should really play the rest to understand better why the series is so good! Even tough the story isn't THAAAAT good it's cool and t the interaction with your team mates was the best part of it.  Also the gameplay is kind of weird but you get the hang of it in no time, and i never had problems with cover :O

Yeah the ending does suck but the game itself is awesome xD.

I liked the original ending personally, outside of the one scene with hacket and joker they added in the extended ending. It was something I could appreciate, but at the same time not an ending that I wanted. It left a lot open to the imagination, and as evident by 2012 as a whole. People hate endings that aren't peaches and rainbows.

Why would you start with ME3?

Everyone says 1 and 2 were better. Nobody that played the trilogy would suggest starting with 3.

It was free on ps+ and MS1 is only available as a trilogy or on psn, I did not want either.

1. They never properly finished that scene where Harbinger fires on you. If you installed the patch, you'd see that an evac was called for them (Don't know if Shepard made the call).
2. The Star Child was a manifestation of the Reaper's central A.I. Or rather its creator. It's being manifested as a child(You learn about this manifestation when you do that extra network mission in Geth space), since the child was the culmination of Shepard's guilt(That was what those dreams were about). There was a huge war between synthetic life and biotics and an A.I. was constructed to solve it. It's answer was to create Reapers to assimilate all developed species. Species are allowed to develop until they create machines that try to kill them (Geth for instance). Once that happens, Reapers are sent to assimilate the cultures before they're destroyed. The Star Child A.I. also left an option in the Crucible to let the biotics have a chance, but they'd have to essentially band together, synthetic and biotic, to hold off the Reaper long enough to construct the crucible. When this happens, the current solution is no longer valid since synthetics and biotics have evolved beyond their wars. Since the Star Child's solution no longer works it gives Shepards some options. Take control of the Reapers, use them to help, or do nothing with them (Extended ending shows Shepard uses them to rebuild the relays, etc). Fuse life, since there is no need to distinguish between synthetic and biotic anymore. Or destroy all synthetic life.

WOW I never knew any of this... I should start reading more about the plot on the wiki... I feel like I didn't understand the story xD

That's the thing, you shouldn't have to read/wikis/log books/ do OPTIONAL sidequests to get points that are vital to the story since I never did that Geth space story (I'm assuming it's not DLC, if it is that's even worse) at least I don't remember it.

I guess it's safe to say then that the game was genuinely unfinished when it was released?

You are kind of right as I remember that the Mass Effect 2 copy I bought came with all DLC and added a LOT to the backstory. I never played the DLC for Mass Effect 3 so I don't know, but if that is the case it does sound pretty bad...

Ah, a fine example of you get what you pay for.

Well you played ME3 and you were disappointed. Join the club.