User blog comment:Diyartifact/Shepard's adversaries/@comment-4967682-20120410121625

Interesting read. I agree that the lack of a central villain (or really villains in general besides TIM) really hurt Mass Effect 3's narrative. I'd also like to point out that The Illusive Man and Kai Leng are basically Saren split into two characters, with Leng representing the physical threat and The Illusive Man the mental one. Both are dark mirrors to Shepard, with The Illusive Man serving humanity's interest and Leng being a former N7 who joined Cerberus after he was deemed too psychopathic to stay in the Alliance.

What Mass Effect 3 needed to do was make Leng more of a threat, and give him the feeling that he is just as competent as Shepard, rather than a little more competent than your squadmates, and ultimately a smug wannabe of a rival. In addition, make Harbinger appear more, possibly doing the whole ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL thing again to remind us that Harbinger is here, he's in charge, and he's after you personally. Adding a few side antagonists (besides Lawson, who's in the game for five minutes) to show how futile they are compared to the main villains would've also helped, as Mass Effect 1 and 2 had in the form of various merc and pirate bosses.