User blog comment:SilencedSkies/The Illusive Man: Good, Evil or just bad writing?/@comment-1900300-20120412065117/@comment-5017885-20120415001818

Ah. I suppose I completely misunderstood you with "But the fact that, once faced with the Reapers, he unashamedly joined forces, offered resources and did everything he could to prepare was interesting."

I read it as joining forces with the Reapers, not Shepard.

That aside, though, I do agree that BioWare kind of botched a very good opportunity for an interesting secondary villain in the Illusive Man. I suppose one could excuse it with "time/budget constraints", as is so often done when referring to the infamous ending, but the fact of the matter is that the Illusive Man was an interesting villain from his introduction, and was turned into something cliche and somewhat against character for ME3.