User blog comment:Traditionalfire/Perspective: Mass Effect 3/@comment-1786741-20130325014137/@comment-1440333-20130327041755

Legion I can completely understand your point, but I have to agree with Lily in part - namely that just playing ME3, even to the best of your ability, will not net you the same game or ending as someone like you or me who imported our game from the beginning. My missus tried that as she didnt have a completed ME2 save at the time ME3 was released. As a result she had minimal War assets, characters like Conrad didn't appear, ME2 squadmates were either absent or died, she couldn't unify the geth and quarians, and she could only select destroy at the end and she didnt receive the breath scene.

The things I listed above - the extra characters and bits in our games as opposed to those of new players? Being able to use resources unavailable to others? Having greater options with the endings? - that is our reward for playing the whole series.