User blog comment:Tvirus1234/Don't Fear the Reaper: A major flaw of Mass Effect 3/@comment-1440333-20130524095646

Disagree completely - Seeing the invasion of Earth, and later Palaven, in the opening hours of the game - seeing perhaps the two most powerful Citadel races get decimated by the Reapers - that drove home the Reapers threat in a much better way than any previous explanation ever had. After all it is one thing to hear stories of how horrible something is, it is quite another to experience it yourself.

A good real life example would be a car crash. Hearing from a friend who is in a car collision is one thing - you can appreciate the horror and shock they felt. Yet if you then find yourself in a similar situation you actually truly understand the shaking and palpable terror that your friend has experienced.