ME3 is getting pretty stellar reviews across the board, which is to be expected, not because it necessarily deserves them but because people who make high budget video games generally know how to appease the system assuming they don't make a massive screw-up. The game is gorgeous, it's well-paced and fun, the story is not nearly as atrocious as most things out there, especially for the first half - it's easy to give it good marks and even to recommend it. Still, there is a laundry list of things wrong with it and I can certainly name a few:

• Atrocious new character design. The New Illusive Man, EVA, James and Allers (ESPECIALLY those two), Javik, Kai Leng - all have hatable character models that are usually matched with hatable personalities.
• A limited character roster filled mostly with ME1 favorites means it's easy to get stuck with a squad you're not wild about.
• Much of the character development dialogue is one-shot, contains no camera work, and is easily skipped by accident.
• The Normandy is poorly constructed and has a tremendous amount of unused space over five floors, any one of which might contain new content but requires a loading screen and a hike to go check every time you complete a mission.
• The exact same goes for the Citadel.
• The lighting in the Normandy is bad and the new sound effect realism modifications make it hard to hear some dialogue.
• Filler material is bland and uninteresting, more so than any prior.
• Sidequest tracking is bad, some of the sidequests are easily broken.
• Resource gathering (Galactic Readiness) is a meaningless number, especially after you fill the green bar.
• Dream sequences are hackneyed, meaningless, and boring.
• Pacing is correct for a video game but inappropriate for the setting in which it is clearly established that the Reapers harvest no less than 1.6 million people per day - and that's just on your planet.
• Shorter than both previous titles despite advertisement to the contrary.
• Easier than both previous titles despite advertisement to the contrary (maybe that's just me).
• Multiplayer "Readiness Rating" decreases in real time, not game time. Multiplayer becomes a daily necessity for obsessive compulsives who don't have time to play the entire thing in one sitting.
• Galaxy map division and percentages are meaningless.
• No final boss.
• Lots of bad dialogue.
• Glitches.
• Origin must be installed on your computer. For me this meant loading ME3 through Origin through Steam, because fuck you I like Steam.
• Infiltrators designed to outsurvive better players and turn multiplayer matches into long, unpleasant experiences that no one is willing to leave. Vanguards have common glitch that immobilizes them and does the same thing.
• Your Shepards face doesn't load across all three games.
• The new Femshep, who has as hatable a face as any of the new characters, constantly loads her face on to your Shepards face at regular intervals.
• Maleshep still the worlds worst voice actor.
• Many bad DLC characters show up again. Many regular characters expected to show up again do not.
• In the best possible run, all of my favorite characters die.
• A mission that only ends when you run out of ammo, and thus never ends if you're playing a competent biotic.
• Blatant thematic copying from other source material without effectively transcribing the emotional value of the material copied. (notable: Winter on Mars, the Miranda Complex from Firefly, all of the terrible games where you chase mystery children through forests in slow motion, and firmly sticking to the flawed proposition that Shepard=some sort of mass-murdering Jesus )
• The ending. That one gets a post all to itself.

Despite all of this Mass Effect 3 is an incredibly fun experience. For all the story inadequacies the gameplay is just short of perfect, so much so that I eventually found myself enjoying the co-op horde mode more than I enjoyed the single-player, which I had to force myself through. It's empty fare where it should be rich, but it's so goddamn delicious it's kinda hard to care.