User blog comment:Traditionalfire/Perspective: Mass Effect 3/@comment-1786741-20130325014137/@comment-1440333-20130325163117

Massive kudos to Temp for that comment.

I've had a lot of time to think about the ending. When I first found out about it - before finishing the game - I was infuriated. It felt cheap and detracting. It didnt feel like what we had been promised. Then I played all three endings, and while I liked the explanations from the Catalyst, and I was able to decide my ideal ending, I could see what Bioware was going for. They were allowing us to decide our endings, to answer those questions, perhaps because they realised that any answers they gave would never be good enough.

Obviously I found out about the Retake movement, and Spike Murphy suing, and the Indoctrination Theory, and I realised that I empathised. I could see the errors in the ending - had we just killed everyone? How had our squad got back to the Normandy? Why was Joker fleeing? I didnt want a happy ending, I had always accepted that this saga could end only with Shepard's death. What I wanted was more closure. I could end certain parts of the story for my squad - but some questions I could reconcile with what had been presented.

Then the EC came out. It answered those questions and then some. and it must have done the same for many others. Spike Murphy stopping his legal case, the Retake movement seems to have died, and many people now accept that the Indoctrination Theory no longer works. Yes some people were even more horrified with the fact that this free content, that Bioware did not need to release, and that the actors, programmers, artists, writers etc made no money from, did not completely rewrite the ending as they wished. In fact I have even seen some people demanding a complete rewrite of the whole game! But for me the EC answered every question I had, and provided even more answers, now making my chosen ending (Synthesis) perhaps the best of them all.

The fact is that the demand for a better ending was not simple entitlement. It was deserved by the fanbase, but Bioware had no obligation to deliver. The fact that they not only did, but answered most criticisms in doing so, was incredible of them, and restored faith in them and their product. Any further whining now IS simple entitlement.