User blog comment:The Milkman/Mass Effect in Retrospect/@comment-80.161.116.153-20130424170447

(First-time commenter, hope I don't accidentally break a wiki rule)

I really liked what you said about ME2. I have always felt that ME2's biggest problem is, like you said, it feels like nothing but padding. Essentially, the whole plot of the ME series (stop the Reapers) is put on hold while you shoot Collectors and solve daddy issues for your crew. I would even go so far as to say that some (not all, but some) of the problems with ME3 can be laid at ME2's feet. For example, many people complain that the Crucible is nothing but a poorly-explained deus-ex-machina. And they have a point. The Crucible is a badly explained and obvious McGuffin. But considering that ME2 ended without you having any idea how to stop the Reapers, there really wasn't any way for ME3 to pull it off. This is just one example of how ME2 may be a good stand-alone game, but it doesn't work as the middle part of a trilogy.

There was a thread on the BSN forums some time ago called "Is the trilogy better off without ME2?" that actually had some good discussions about this issue (in between piles of "ME2 was the only game that didn't suck!" posts). There were a lot of good points about how the ME games work together (or not) and how the series could have been handled better overall. If you search through the BSN "Mass Effect 3 story and campaign discussion" forums, you might find it (though the last post in that thread is 3 months old by now).