-- SPOILER WARNING --


-- DOUBLE EPIC SPOILER WARNING --


So I just finished Mass Effect 3. Basically, it was one hell of an emotional roller coaster. The final arc of an amazing game trilogy. The end of the Reaper's harvest cycle. The end of Shepard's story. Possibly, even the end of Shepard him/herself. But it just leaves so many questions unanswered...

Can organic civilisation survive without the mass relays?
Part of the sacrifice of using the Crucible to stop the Reapers involved the destruction of all the mass relays. Unfortunately this makes new problems:
All the fleets you gathered to fight the Reapers are now effectively stranded in the Sol System. There is no way Earth can feed the galactic armada, considering how beat up it is right now. Also, the other races are left completely helpless, no supply lines, no reinforcements, their fleets trapped over Earth with no way of getting back within the next century. Unless they make mass relays overnight, only the long-lived asari are ever going to see their homeworld again Sucks to be a salarian.
Where is the Normandy and WHY is it there?
If Shepard destroyed all the mass relays within moments of making their decision, how and why was Joker at the mass relay, outrunning the burst of Crucible energy? And how did the rest of Shepard's crew end up on board? Last I saw, Kaidan and Garrus were flattened by the Reaper laser right outside the Conduit on Earth, and everyone else was covering the tanks on foot. Never mind the fact that it doesn't make physical sense, but more worryingly is that Joker appears to be fleeing the battle of the galaxy at its most climactic moment. Taking the Shepard's loyal crew with him is also very out-of-character, as is the fact that everyone left with him. Can you imagine Garrus or Tali running away just as Shepard sacrifices themselves to save the galaxy? I can't.
What happened to the Reapers?
In the Paragon and Synthesis endings, Shepard merely calls off the Reapers, or 'assumes direct control' of their actions, but does not destroy them. So… where did they go? Did Shepard send them back into deep space? Did s/he take over the Catalyst's job of directing the Reapers? What the hell would s/he do with a bunch of Reaper puppets anyway? IMO that is a very loose end, considering that there is no concrete evidence that it worked or that Shepard didn't just get vaporised for the Reapers to take a toilet break. Well, the endings vaguely hint at the invasion being stopped, but does this mean the Reapers are sort of floating around like giant bug corpses over Earth? I… It… What?!?
Was there any difference between the endings?
No. 'Nuff said.
Okay, FINE, there are minute differences, but here they are:
Paragon: Controlling the Reapers. Your face burns off.
Renegade: Destroying all synthetic life. You get asploded but have the best chance of surviving.
Synthesis: Merging synthetic and organic life. You get vaporised. And you make it possible for EDI and Joker to have cyborg babies.

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Ah yes, player choice! We have dismissed that claim.

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The epilogue cannot be correct.
From the conversation between the old man and his grandchild, we can infer the following:
- Humanity has lost (or backtracked) in space travel technology.
- Humanity finds itself alone in the galaxy again.
- Shepard is most definitely dead at this point, either from the decision or old age.
This means that the fleets that were battling Reapers were annihilated completely, leaving no aliens, and no advanced spaceships for future exploration. Why? Because the mass relays were destroyed almost instantaneously at the time of Shepard's final choice, at a time when all fleets were heavily engaged with the Reapers, leaving them no way to flee (unlike the Normandy), thus we can assume that Shepard stopped the Reapers too late, and the allied fleets were destroyed before he or she could call off the Reapers' attacks. No more aliens, no more technology, no more communication.
This is illogical. Ever since ME1, although none of the species had mass-relay speed travel for their ships, their communications were equally fast, being able to hold real-time conversations from any location to any ship (so that the turian councillor could chew you out for your missions, har har). This kind of technology would hardly be forgotten, no matter how "long ago" it all was. And the aliens would still be able to communicate with one another, even if they couldn't travel as quickly. Unless the Crucible also did some universal mind-wipe that removed all memory of FTL technology, the survivors of the Battle for Earth could not have fallen that far behind, considering how far in the future they are!

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Anyway, I call bullshit on the ending. Complete, utter bullshit. Why take such an amazing buildup, plethora of great choices and emotional investment and throw it away just to pick red, blue or green? The gameplay was astounding, the cinematics beautiful and the dialogue both hilarious and touching, but the ending? To quote EmEr77 on the Bioware forums: "The game's ending is truly a slap in the face of the BioWare team who worked their asses off to create a game that tripped at the finish line. Tripped at the finish line. Tripped. At. The. Finish. Line."
Yes, the one mistake Bioware's dev team made was just in the worst place possible. And now all the fans are hating on them just for one tiny mistake. But unfortunately, also for good reason. We spent all that time and effort uniting the galaxy, negotiating peace, brokering alliances and all for what? I preferred ME2's way of showing you how your decisions impacted the ending; which characters survived and which did not depending on how you chose to act and plan for the mission. But Mass Effect 3 takes this all away, and even if you turn every single ally away, watch them all die, you can still stand in front of the child-Catalyst and finish the game. And get the exact same result.
I suspect this completely diminishes replay value. There was even a convenient autosave for me to go back and pick the other two paths without extra combat. So in a sense, I actually got my 3 endings from one playthrough. None of which was what I wanted, or what I hoped for. I guess all I really want to do is upload the other playthroughs to see what romance subplots I get, but until the ending is fixed, I'll probably call it quits once I get the "Paramour" achievement. And, yes, I do believe the ending needs fixing. Not that the 3 endings provided weren't enough, but there should be a really, REALLY good path that if you achieved 100% EMS or reached 6000 War Assets, you would be reunited with your LI and the Normandy and the invasion would cease. Or a really horrible ending where you get indoctrinated, help the Reapers annihilate civilisation and start on another galaxy. Come ON, I need a reason to pull out my other playthroughs! Please, don't let it end like this!!!!

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_{If anyone wanted to compare results, these were my stats for my ME3 Playthrough:
F!SHEP
Vanguard, Spacer, Butcher of Torfan
ME1 LI: NA
ME2 LI: Garrus
ME3 LI: Garrus (cont'd)
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ME1: Lost the Council, lost Wrex, lost Ashley, appointed Udina (default ME2 game)
ME2: Saved Maelon's data, encouraged quarians to war, all crew and squad survived on Suicide Mission, blew up the Collector base
ME3: Sided with krogan over Dalatress, reunited the quarians and geth, saved the mutant rachni, went to war with 95% EMS at around 5600 points.}

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And the more I screw around on the BSN, the less I want to play ME3…

Links to much better expressed opinions on Mass Effect 3:
Musings of a Screenwriter
The World Reacts to ME3 Endings
Mass Effect 3 Ending and Why We Hate It