User blog comment:The Milkman/The Shepard Fan Club/@comment-1388547-20120720194923/@comment-4950455-20120726015511

I don't know how much being rushed had to do with anything, honestly. There's a certain sense at times that the writers really wanted to be making a movie or some other "better" form of fiction - c.f. the comment about cutting an Illusive Man boss fight because it would be "too video gamey". So I can't help but wonder whether there was, at least in some cases, a deliberate intent to create a more "standardized" Shepard to better fit with this idea.