User blog comment:The Milkman/Mass Effect in Retrospect/@comment-3228423-20130417021124/@comment-4237253-20130417124333

Yes, those little things are all good, but that's just filler. None of that directly pertains to stopping the Reapers. It sets up the subplots, but doesn't divulge enough about the Reapers themselves. Smudboy put it this way (paraphrasing):

Mass Effect was about discovering the Reapers. Mass Effect 3 was about stopping the Reapers. Mass Effect 2 should have been about gathering intel on the Reapers.