There are many explanations and diatribes about the issues with Mass Effect 3's ending, but this one is mine.
Let me start a little earlier than most and address something I don't always see mentioned: the Citadel-yoinking. I don't have a problem with the Citadel being the Catalyst. That actually makes a lot of sense, given what we learned at the end of the first Mass Effect game about the Citadel having control over the entire mass relay network. Therefore it's a logical place for something controlling the aim of a galactic superweapon.
But to suddenly learn it's gone, stolen, and taken by the Reapers to Earth--well, that presents some immediate questions:
Wait, the Citadel can move!? Did anyone know this? If so, maybe mention it a bit more prominently so this doesn't feel out of the blue? If not, why doesn't anyone mention what a giant surprise this is?
The Citadel is the hub of Shepherd's activity in the game, and they've probably helped and maybe come to care about people on it. Plus there's all the refugees presumably on or near it. I'm not automatically against the tragedy of them dying, but it has to be actually, y'know, acknowledged! At least have a moving cutscene, instead of having everything offscreen. The resultant deaths aren't even mentioned by anyone!
And finally, as mentioned a few paragraphs ago, the Citadel is the center of the relay network. In the (much better) finale of Mass Effect 1 Shepherd discovered this and stopped the Reapers from grabbing the Citadel and controlling said network. So, now the Reapers do have the Citadel. Did they just decide to be charitable and keep the relays working? I suppose the solution from Mass Effect 1 could have locked them out somehow, but that really deserves at least some kind of explanation.
Obviously the out of game reason for the move was to get the finale back to Earth and have a nice parallel to leaving with the beginning. It doesn't quite work, however, if there's no good reason for the Reapers to move it there. Why were they processing everyone on the Citadel, anyway? It seems horribly inefficient if they just have the one beam for transport.
Also, the game tries really hard to milk the horror of Earth under the Reapers and...sorry, London doesn't look that bad. I mean, it's a ruin, but it's no more horrifying than any other depiction of war. If the fighting is really that bad, I wouldn't expect mostly-intact buildings and ground combat. The Alliance soldiers being shocked doesn't feel realistic.
Plus, Shepherd and co. have heard of some truly horrible things--nuked cities, death camps, indoctrinated patsies. Ruined streets don't really seem that bad compared to those. And I still don't understand why the Reapers need that dang beam.
I'll be generous and assume the Destroyer prevents troops from being dropped off right at the beam's base. It still seems like Hammer lands a bit farther back than they need to.
Hammer's also far too human. After Shepherd has spent the entire game gathering the galaxy, the most we get is some ship shots and (only with the Extended Cut, I believe) an occasional shot of a krogan or turian, plus that one asari team that dies. That helps, but more allies would have had much more resonance with the rest of the game. And Bioware already had specific allies show up in the endgame battles of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, too, so the lack here feels especially weak.
There's nothing particularly wrong with the combat for the final push in and of itself. With the weaknesses of the setting, though, it makes it a disappointing end for the last combat of the game (and trilogy.) It's even more disappointing knowing nothing particularly awesome is coming afterwards, either.
Regarding the final run to the beam, I have mixed feelings. I don't mind Harbinger showing up, but not being able to do anything but dodge him kind of makes its appearance feel pointless. And calling the Normandy to show up feels weird. Wasn't it needed in the battle above? I assume it can evac all the wounded, at least.
But since the Normandy was able to fly in, presumably thanks to the Destroyer being down, nothing should be stopping the Alliance from shipping in a bunch more guys to the beam, right? I guess Harbinger is a deterrent to that, although it understandably concentrates on stopping the ground troops from getting to the beam. But then it just leaves. So I guess the Reapers ultimately fail because Harbinger couldn't wait around or bother to lay down a few more beams to make sure everybody was dead.
Anyway, all the dead bodies on the Citadel make me wonder if the Reapers are just using the CItadel as a trash dump. Nice that the beam conveniently dumped both Anderson and Shepherd to close to where they needed to be. I don't really mind that, but it might have been a missed opportunity for some Citadel folk to show up.
I might as well stop here to point out the similarities to the first game--unexpectedly transporting to the Citadel under the attack, then conversation with your enemy while trying to open the Citadel's arms. Yet the Earth-slog is nothing like the cool and epic locations of Ilos and the Citadel under geth attack (note you get to see the reaction of familiar Citadel locations to that attack.)
And while the final Illusive Man conversation parallels the Saren confrontation, somehow Saren, despite knowing him a much shorter time and even with the dialogue being shorter, manages to be more sympathetic. (It doesn't help that for some reason you can't skip TIM's lines and have to listen to him blather on.)
Also, TIM appears to be packing some sort of biotic and/or mind control powers with his Reaper upgrades. These are never explained. How is he holding Shepherd off? Did he just biotically fire a gun? Again, I don't mind TIM being Reaper-upgraded, but nobody acknowledging or explaining the matter is beyond annoying.
Finally, out of a number of weak accusations and missed opportunities, this confrontation manages to be the worst. It's the final chance to take the Illusive Man to the task for all the horrors of Cerberus and call him out for the selfish tyrant he is, but Shepherd at most sounds like they have some minor complaints. I could understand Shepherd in this encounter trying to be empathetic to talk TIM down, but that would require actually getting the opportunity to tear into him for all the mass murder and brainwashing earlier.
And why is it so difficult to convince him, anyway? Why does it have to be an epic moment to talk him down? He's done nothing worthy of being an awesome enemy. He's an irritation Shepherd hasn't had the chance to take care of yet.
The scene between Anderson and Shepherd is a nice moment until Hackett's jarring interruption. What exactly triggered the floating platform of Shepherd Delivery? I assume the Crucible docking is what lead to the Catalyst to start the conversation--was Shepherd just the closest person to ask? Did Hackett just need wait a bit? I guess Shepherd had enough time to heal for this conversation thanks to all the cybernetics, but all these little unexplained things are annoying.
So, the Catalyst. What is the Catalyst doing on the Citadel? Does it just hang out there? It seems weird that the Reapers' creator just chills at the Citadel while the Reapers have to attack it to control it. I guess it doesn't directly order them around, but there's not really a strong reason for it to be at the Citadel as opposed to other options, and it makes for some awkward lore. At the very least it could have been tied into Avina or the keepers or something.
Heck, why not have had the Catalyst be on Earth? Or confront Cerberus on Earth, then finish with an epic Citadel battle? I can think of a lot of ways to have similar elements without shorting the CItadel and slogging through Earth.
Anyway, back to the inexplicably-Citadel-dwelling Starchild. As Leviathan clarified, the Starchild is basically a machine without proper safeguards gone terribly wrong. Ironically, then, it seems to lack the sentience of the geth or the Reapers themselves, given the rigidity of its thinking. This isn't the most original or interesting origin for the Reapers, but it does sort of work as a horrible tragedy.
None of which gives Shepherd any reason to believe the brat is telling the truth. Why should they believe the Starchild when it says the destruction option will kill the geth? It has plenty of reason to not want Shepherd to pick that option, even if, thanks to the Crucible, it has to offer it. I wish that with enough points behind the Crucible it could distinguish between Reapers and Reaper-derived tech, and headcanon such.
Control makes sense as an option. The Catalyst is forced to offer it because of the Crucible. And for all the frustration involved in the game's Illusive Man encounters, they have had a running theme of controlling versus destruction.
It's Synthesis that makes absolutely no sense. You can't force understanding between synthetics and organics by flipping a switch. I can buy the stupid Starchild not understanding that forcibly melding everybody won't lead to peace. I'm not sure why Shepherd would, however. So I understand the option being there, but not why a Shepherd would choose it.
What I really don't understand is why the game designers apparently feel it's the best choice too. It's the hardest to unlock and it requires Shepherd's sacrificial death. How above Earth is forcibly combing synthetics and organics against their will a perfect choice?!
In the game we've seen peace and cooperation between machine and organic with EDI and possibly with the geth and quarians. This was by the hard work of actual actions and conversations resulting in changed viewpoints. It's not something that magically happens when you get electric eyes.
Speaking of Shepherd's death, with enough points after choosing Destroy you get a final breath scene that indicates Shepherd is still alive. Why be so coy about it? This is the last game of the trilogy; if our choices have lead to Shepherd surviving, why not go all out and show them with their love interest and friends?
At least the extended cut has the slideshow which gives a hint of friends' fate instead of leaving the Normandy marooned on an unknown planet like the original ending. That unfortunately implied they were doomed to starvation while the galaxy fell into chaos with the destruction of the mass relays. At least the extended cut fixes the unavoidable galactic collapse...but it still has all of the other problems listed above.
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