Grayed out abilities & lame boss fights... But reasonably cool ending none-the-less

Well, I'm done with Mass Effect for the near future. Maybe (maybe) I'll try and cheese out another achievement or two, but I should probably move on.

Like Jade Empire, I enjoyed this game despite its many flaws. I do feel slightly betrayed because I feel like I made a bunch of internally consistent choices that resulted in a disconnect between my character and my choices. I played a principled renegade -- yet my choices denied me the opportunity to intimidate Sarin into giving up in the final boss battle. The dialog option I wanted most was grayed out even though I had harvested enough talent points to max out my intimidate skill. Sadly, I couldn't eke out enough renegade points to unlock the slots. Of course, insult was added to injury because immediately after killing Sarin I made a plot choice that netted me the renegade points I needed to unlock the talent slots. Sigh.

The worse betrayal, however, was the fact that I needed to choose the xenophobic response at the very end: Humans should take the lead in the war against the Reapers. What I really wanted was the disbanding of the Citadel and a multi-species force. Heck, my love interest was a non-human... I dig the inter-species mixing.

For a game that is so dialog heavy and story and character driven, I feel a little let down. I'm happy to have completed the game and look forward to a sequel. I just hope that it gets the polish and depth of character development it needs to truly deliver on its promises.