http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect-3/user-reviews
Positive: 143
Mixed: 18
Negative: 498

WTF? Either someone is gaming the metacritic user reviews, or ME3 has real issues?


By comparison, ME2 had 1,050 positive, 56 mixed, and 80 negative user reviews. ME1 had 584 positive, 29 mixed, and 40 negative.

edit:
Never mind. It looks like metacritic is being trolled.

******** staggered release dates...

Pretty much this.

Who came up with that BS, anyways?

Okay this is very important guys, because I just finished Mass Effect 3 and I'm wondering whether or not I should tell you all but what the ****, it pissed me off.


Mass Effect 3 has the worst ending in the history of all media and creativity, even the bible is better, it has actually managed to make it so I won't even play games that EA have gone near now nevermind buy them, in case you're wondering, they're going to franchise the crap out of this game because of how successful it is and turn it into an MMORPG I can see it coming.

What are you talking about, Deus EX ending was awesome...wait

Okay this is very important guys, because I just finished Mass Effect 3 and I'm wondering whether or not I should tell you all but what the ****, it pissed me off.


Mass Effect 3 has the worst ending in the history of all media and creativity, even the bible is better, it has actually managed to make it so I won't even play games that EA have gone near now nevermind buy them, in case you're wondering, they're going to franchise the crap out of this game because of how successful it is and turn it into an MMORPG I can see it coming.

Madden NFL 2003Mass Effect
Madden NFL 2004Mass Effect 2
Madden NFL 2005Mass Effect 3
Madden NFL 06Mass Effect 2013
Madden NFL 07Mass Effect 2014
Madden NFL 08Mass Effect 2015
Madden NFL 09Mass Effect 2016
Madden NFL 10Mass Effect 17
Madden NFL 11Mass Effect 18
Madden NFL 12Mass Effect 19
Madden NFL 13Mass Effect 20

The ending made me regret playing the game.

From the way the game played out, I expected two choices at the end: go with the Illusive Man's plan and control the Reapers, or just use it to destroy them. The way they did it, and the third choice they added, were just stupid.

That's no surprise, I find the game a tad better than what I expected so far (haven't been very far yet), but it's obvious all Bioware franchises are doomed since EA took over.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect-3/user-reviews
Positive: 143
Mixed: 18
Negative: 498

WTF? Either someone is gaming the metacritic user reviews, or ME3 has real issues?


By comparison, ME2 had 1,050 positive, 56 mixed, and 80 negative user reviews. ME1 had 584 positive, 29 mixed, and 40 negative.

edit:
Never mind. It looks like metacritic is being trolled.

The most telling thing about the reviews at Meta-Critic and, indeed online in general, is the stark discrepancy between the paid professional reviewer scores and those from actual players. In many cases, I have been wondering who actually played the game and who was clearly bought off in the pro ranks. I have gotten to where I always put my faith in lots of player reviews rather than supposed pro ones now.

The actual players are just pissed they didnt get their rainbows and sunshine ending. As a whole mass effect 3 was awesome, i definately understand why people are upset at the ending but i personally disagree with their reasons.

No that is not the only reason at all. There are several reasons as to why and one of the biggest reasons is because the game is ****. Just because you dress up and market the **** out of something does not make it a better or even more entertaining game than something for free on the iPhone.


Sales numbers also reflect that, Skyrim did 6million+ in the first 48 hours, ME3 did 800k+.

The media and gaming journalism is out of touch with the consumer it is not even funny. If Transformers 3 was a video-game it would have received all 10's, that should tell you something.


Watch this keynote at DICE and get a hint as to why games like ME are not only stupid but bad for the industry!

SWTOR, DA2 and ME2 & 3 are perfect examples of bad games where the focus of what makes a great game has been lost.

Even games like KOTOR and Jade Empire are bad, they age terrible and the reason is because the game-play sucks. Anyone can pick up super Mario today and play it, try picking up KOTOR today and suffer. You are better of reading the story or watching a Let's play youtube vid. But in all honesty, if you did that you would come to compare it to a well written book or a great movie and realize that the game is worse than a comic-book.

Here is another great example of using the games media correctly.

Here is some interesting data about how much people give a **** about story or perhaps story hurts gameplay?!

Makes me think Modern Warfare got the right idea, same with Nintendo when it comes to story.

Wait a minute, I just realised one of the most ridiculous flaws with the Mass Effect 3 storyline, if they knew that reapers had come through the Citadel why didn't they just evacuate everyone on the station and then blow it up? WTF? Now Mass Effect storyline seems even more stupid to me than before!

It's ME2/DA2 where it got ugly for Bioware, where they lost their focus.

I can assure you come release date ME3 will under-perform compared to previous games.

The bad reviews have not stopped anyone from buying it, in fact do you remember posting:-



Well you where wrong, badly wrong. So far its selling twice as fast as ME2.

Before you start mashing your keys in rage and calling me a "biodrone" try to notice that I am not defending the game, I not saying its good, or bad. I have not played it yet so I won't comment.

I'm just highlighting that despite all the rage posting and calls for boycott most of the angry posters seem to have gone straight out and bought it.

Just like other boycotts.

edit: Checked sales, Mass Effect 1 sold 2.5 times more than ME3 on the xbox 360 alone than ME3 sold on ALL platforms. Peace!

So Mass Effect 3 has been taken off the shelves then?

Right and one Friday afternoon come spring time 2014 SWTOR will start selling copies again

Tyran, you are so bright!

You obviously didn't get the sarcasm, if ME3 is still quite obviously on the shelves how can it be determined that ME1 outsold it? It cant, it didn't even get released until yesterday in some areas either. In 6-12 months it would be possible to try claim which one outsold the other, until then selling twice as fast as ME2 is the most that can be said.

iBy the way, that is not "the most that can be said",

The complete lack of payoff for my decisions in the very end has really killed the replay value in the series for me.

Major spoiler alert: http://paragadeshep.tumblr.com/post/19099827322/alternate-explanation-for-the-me3-endings

But if this turns out to be true.... I will apoligize to Bioware.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRRpGlmtws8

Requiem for EA/Bioware

All you need is one code to unlock the day 1 DLC on your disc, the DLC Bioware said was made after the game went to certification.

Seriously, people need to stop buying games with EA label on it.

Ouch, a simple regedit change is all it takes to enable the DLC?

On the positive side, it means that Bioware didn't waste a lot of time on DLC "security."

edit: I wonder how long until that workaround gets patched.

Unless you have a pirated copy of the game in the first place its not worth doing, EA will probably ban the Origin accounts of anyone they catch doing it. Bye-bye any games you tied to that Origin account.

I have been following the "ending hallucination" thread on BSN and while they make some compelling arguments, I really don't think Bioware made fake endings. I think the fans are just trying to tie all the plot holes together into a fake ending as they can't grasp that Bioware just put a crappy ending on the series.

1. If they intended to make a fake ending why would they go through the trouble to make 3? With 3 somewhat different cut scenes? All ending with the whole goal of mass effect "Stop the Reapers." In all 3 Shepard sacrifices himself to stop the Reapers and protect organic life. Yes, the mass relays are destroyed and it would cause a lot of problems since the fleet would be stuck in the Sol system but life does go on as we see from the ending scene with the Stargazer telling to story to the kid.

2. Making a fake ending means everyone would have to download a DLC later so the people who don't have internet would be screwed. Not to mention they wouldn't be able to charge for it otherwise fans would be more outraged that Bioware sold them a game with the wrong ending just so you would have to pay more for the real one later. While an alternate DLC ending isn't out of the question since we saw this with Fallout I don't think it would be released specifically to replace the current ones.

3. The argument of Shepard being indoctrinated by Harbinger seems stupid to me. Why would he try to indoctrinate Shepard instead of just kill him? What purpose would it serve if the reapers hell bent on destroying all organic life? Also why try to indoctrinate him in the middle of the battle?

4. The argument that Shepard starts to turn into a husk in the synthesis and control endings because he is getting indoctrinated but not in the destroy ending doesn't make sense. He doesn't look like he turns into a husk but "burns" which makes total sense as he is "electrocuted" in one and in an energy beam in the other. In the destroy ending we don't see him die. All we see is the explosion engulf him so he could have survived.

This also makes the "secret" ending of him being alive only possible in the destroy ending as it's the only one we don't see him getting vaporized. I believe he is still on the Citadel as he is buried under rubble and it's quiet. People have been saying he woke up on the street after breaking Harbinger's hold but that doesn't make sense. He would have passed out in the middle of a warzone on the street yet it's quiet and he is buried under rubble?

5. The infinite ammo gun/dream feeling makes sense as the ending is supposed to be more cinematic and you aren't supposed to run out of ammo. And the slow motion seems to add more of a "I'm half dead and making a last stand mood."

6. People claim the Guardian tries to keep you from going to the destroy ending and killing the reapers but there is a youtube video where the player only gets the destroy ending and the Guardian says "you only have one choice." To me this shows the endings are in fact real since there is no way one can claim the reapers would indoctrinate Shepard and then get him to destroy them.

7. I really don't know what the scene with the Normandy crashing on the planet is other than bad writing. I guess it shows not everyone in your team died and is sort of an epilogue? However, it doesn't make sense that people in my team on Earth would magically appear on the Normandy flying away from battle; maybe it's just random.

All in all I think Bioware just put a bad ending on their game and people are grasping for straws to make sense of it. Granted Bioware could run with the indoctrination theory and spin the situation claiming it was their plan all along and offer a pay for DLC ending. But I hope it's not a "pony and sunshine" happy ending as I think the best way to end Mass Effect is for Shepard to sacrifice himself to save everyone not show him on a beach having a drink with his LI watching his kids run around like some people want.

As for Bioware they have been quiet since release probably due to everyone going on vacation and the major ****storm people have raised over the endings which can't be dealt with until their staff gets back. We saw something along the same lines with CCP when the NEX store hit and P2W fiasco. I bet we will hear something next week and it will either put the nail in the coffin for Mass Effect or be a "We got you so good" spin on the ending.

Unless you have a pirated copy of the game in the first place its not worth doing, EA will probably ban the Origin accounts of anyone they catch doing it. Bye-bye any games you tied to that Origin account.

I remember not so long ago when that guy got banned from actually playing Dragon Age II after his BSN account got banned because he criticised DA II on the BSN forum. I can see the same **** happening with Origin accounts now they are all tied in together.

If you did everything right and choose the right ending you get a scene where Shepard lives.

I don't see how that would be possible unless the endings were a hallucination.... ;p

If you did everything right and choose the right ending you get a scene where Shepard lives.

I don't see how that would be possible unless the endings were a hallucination.... ;p

It doesn't make any sense! It's like someone had a really detailed plan on what was going to happen in the third game then they got booted from the project and some moron took over instead, in fact, knowing EA I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened.

It's got some flaws, to be certain, but it's a bit like pointing out the scratches on a lightbulb - when it's shining you don't notice them at all

Funny you say this, actually. You know that guy who wrote KOTOR, ME1, and ME2? He had nothing to do with ME3.

And goddamnit, I want to play KOTOR now.

I'm compelled to reply to this thread, but I won't read it - I'm only 3 days into playing the game and, while I hope I'm wrong, experience has taught me to never trust the Eve forum community to maintain a thread like this beyond a page or two without some asshat posting spoilers without warning. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm not taking the chance

Well just because we get a scene with Shepard taking a breath at the end doesn't mean it's all a hallucination. If you look closely at the video you will notice he is buried in a large amount of rubble. Some of this rubble looks rectangular implying it's part of the support structure of the Citadel. And unfortunately a good example of this is that the rubble looks a lot like what they showed on TV after the World Trade Centers fell.

If Shepard was waking up on the street after Harbinger almost killed him with the laser there wouldn't be that much rubble laying around him and it would look more like what we saw when Shepard is running toward the beam. It seems to me like it's a way to continue the story if Bioware chooses to like Halo 3 did when MC gets in the stasis pod.

The ending sucks at so many levels, no matter the effort we did in 3 games with building a perfect Shep, it all comes down to 3 choices, Shep dies, reapers gone (possibly Geth and EDI also) and mass relays gone (space goes back to stone age) in all of them.

Link

Best i could do in first pass, and i have no will to play anymore.

On the account of "best ending", we just killed all Geth + EDI, blown everything up to hell.
And then Shep takes a breath of air, how did he survive the citadel explosion at point blank? No station means no air (and he breaths), no gravity (nothing floating around Shep) and no heat (space is cold usually).

And even if he survived all of that, he somehow made it in atmosphere reentry without roasting himself to hell, he smacks the earth in god knows what speed, doesn't splatter himself across the continent, he manages to land in some rubble, and take a breath of air...not to mention he was injured like hell and if we take into account his last scenes with Anderson, Shep had a "bullet" wound in his left side (around kidney) and was bleeding like a pig.

People have confirmed, that if you romanced Tali, you screwed up on Rannoch, Tali takes a cliff dive, she is dead, and in the end she walks out of the crashed Normandy....
Same thing with your 2 teammates that vanished before the Beam charge, i lead EDI and Tali to final battle, we all got "wiped out" and they walk out of Normandy. Plot holes all around.

So "dream" ending or epic laziness from bioware. Dunno whats worse.

My bet is on dream ending. The rest of the game is too consistent to make it not true >_>

Still, i am afraid to get my hopes up. This was a massive "F you" to the fans. Still cant get how the hell could they even imagine showing this, after the leak months ago when they said its just temporary ending, and to be revised. Then it goes live...

If they didn't have the end ready, they should have said so, not take this hit from the fans, unsubs from SWTOR and shitstorm all around.

If they plan to release it as a DLC, and even charge for it, that's a new low.

I DO like it that the endings are not Hollywood endings and I think a large part of the fanbase is ranting because of this.

Hi, don't speak for other people please, you remind me of that stupid 99% soundbite that the occupy movement was throwing around, I happen to believe the central banks are the route cause of the problem and have more power than the actual government which is why all their buddies got bailed out while the other ones failed.

Selling an ending to a game as DLC? Hmm, I wonder why the movies never tried this..

Oh, that's right, gamers are idiots


(Do it EA, at this point I'd bet they all buy it.)

-the ending... it's all been said. Love it or hate it is up to you, I for one pledge an oath today that I will never pay money for another EAioware game. Of course the ending was done on purpose and it's so they can drag you out for another $50 later giving you what they intentionally withheld.

well, I beat the game.

Never again will I pay for another one of their products. I'll play some of them, but they got my last dollar. And no matter what they do in the future (if anything) to rectify the slap in the face that the end of this game was, unless it's free DLC it will only go to support my opinions on pirating software to send a message.

Future conversations will go like this:

Bob: You shouldn't pirate software Alia, it's bad.
ME: I gave Bioware hundreds of dollars and 5 years of being a loyal fan. They repaid this by ruining the end of what could have been the most epic sci-fi game series of all time. The reasons for which are either sabotaging their own product by forcing development to meet an unrealistic due date (not likely) or to repay my patronage by trying to dupe a few more dollars out of me.
Bob: But it's stealing
ME: Yeah, I know. That's why I'm so mad at them.
Bob: That's not what I meant...
ME: I know.

Mass Effect 4... well the ending either hints at more Shepard (and there damn well better be - I need Shep!
[snip]
MASS PREDICTION: Within a year, a DLC to give us a more satisfying conclusion and set up the next trilogy for Shep.

We should make shirts, i bought all 3 ME titles, and all i got was a kick in the quad. :)

Meh, the ending's not really as terrible as a lot of people are trying to make it out to be. Especially if you buy into this.

Meh, the ending's not really as terrible as a lot of people are trying to make it out to be. Especially if you buy into this.

Its amazing because you really had to TRY to ruin mass effect. At worst, people were expecting a tragic ending, or a generic good ending. This was like, effort. Phantom menace style effort.

Its amazing because you really had to TRY to ruin mass effect.

Guys, I just remembered another damn plothole in Mass Effect 3.

Does everyone remember when Shepard actually manages to take down the reaper on Rannoch with a laser pointer and the normandy? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?! That just made the whole damn idea of crucible completely pointless! They should have made it so that using crucible was a renegade option and just beating the reapers toe to toe using those kind of tactics was the paragon option.

What the ****?! ARGH! Why am I still raging over this game?! Why put a blatant weakness in the reaper and then force you to go after crucible and go through all that pointless bullshit with cerberus? Granted, cerberus would still be a threat but that doesn't mean all the other armies can't just go off and blow up the reapers anyway while you deal with them with your own elite squad.

EDIT: Also .. never forget Marauder Shields.

I'd rather look at reality than be in complete denial about the game endings being absolute garbage, what is the biggest **** take is the game pulls you along with perfectly acceptable storylines and choices towards the middle then it just comes along and kicks you in the balls for all your effort.

Incorrect, the Normandy was only able to knock the Reaper down, and only by hitting its weak point. To actually kill the reaper, they had to sync up Shepard's laser to the ENTIRE quarian fleet, and all consecutively shoot the weak spot with perfect timing, four times in a row. Yeah.

Forbes: Casey Hudson Responds to Mass Effect Ending Protests:

"This is Not the Last You'll Hear of Commander Shepard"

Looks like Bioware's gonna crack and give into the demands of Mass Effect fans.

On a side note, I just donated to the Retake campaign. It's getting a lot of publicity, and it's already at $65,000.

I believe it when I see it.

Almost $77,000 now. I donated to it the moment I heard about it. It's a brilliant idea - what are they gonna say? "**** all those sick children, we don't care what you all say!" It's like a guilt cannon.

Almost $77,000 now. I donated to it the moment I heard about it. It's a brilliant idea - what are they gonna say? "**** all those sick children, we don't care what you all say!" It's like a guilt cannon.

I played the previous 2 games although not the third. I didn't even know it came out for a week. With all the brouhaha about the ending I did not chose to buy the game. I just watched the ending and I see where everyone is going with this. The ending is not bad, it's just not fitting.

Let me elaborate.

The ending felt more suited for a linear game like CoD or something. You didn't feel like the choices you made influenced anything. The ending was just.... it.

Also people are mad at the ending because it's the ending of the ME series and that makes them sad no matter what.

Finished it last night.

I don't mind Shepard dying or nearly dying or any of the final three choices despite how little my choices effected the outcome.

I think if you did badly you should be stuck with these sacrifice choices but if you tried hard and got everyone you could to the end a victory could be possible.

That's by the by my main gripe is that despite everything for some reason you have to destroy all the mass relays and strand everyone on Earth and cut off the rest of the galaxy, where was my "and everyone lived in peace for a time thanks to Shepard ending" which also leaves the door open for future Mass Effect stories. This just seems to end the whole franchise.

Imagine the movie series ending like this!

Woo! Bioware has officially announced: the ending will be changed!

The fans win!

They're not saying anything definite at all.
All I read between the lawyer talk is "Our fans are a bunch of jerks and we are awesome yet misunderstood artists" and "More news in April".
I got to admire their willingness to pour oil on the fire.
From a business perspective way to go to alienate your fanbase

They're not saying anything definite at all.
All I read between the lawyer talk is "Our fans are a bunch of jerks and we are awesome yet misunderstood artists" and "More news in April".
I got to admire their willingness to pour oil on the fire.
From a business perspective way to go to alienate your fanbase

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/bt/aj/topreasons/34653-me3-indoctrination-theory-a-dlc

I'm fully on the indoctrination theory train now.

If true, it IS a brilliant ending.

It is appaling that the end is so full of plotholes and filled with bad writing it is even possible to fabricate this theory and make it seem plausible, which I find faintly hilariously silly.

I'll laugh like hell when Bioware decides to run with it to save their ass, but I believe that that was not their intent at all, their plot ending was just terrible writing, like most of the DA2 plot.

It is appaling that the end is so full of plotholes and filled with bad writing it is even possible to fabricate this theory and make it seem plausible, which I find faintly hilariously silly.

I'll laugh like hell when Bioware decides to run with it to save their ass, but I believe that that was not their intent at all, their plot ending was just terrible writing, like most of the DA2 plot.

On the other hand, it could really be a dose of fridge brilliance.

This is also a good vid.

On the other hand, it could really be a dose of fridge brilliance.

This is also a good vid.

The indoctrination theory is so sad, why where people so unable to accept that the ending sucked? Bioware might roll with it now in an attempt to mollify fans or sell DLC but I doubt it was ever intended from the start. The five stages of grief describe the butt hurt perfectly.

Mind = blown.

That said, to me, it would be even more of a slap in the face for bioware to write such a masterpiece and withhold the ending from me (a person who payed them $70 for a game, complete with ending) than for them to simply fail to write one to begin with.

Well just because we get a scene with Shepard taking a breath at the end doesn't mean it's all a hallucination. If you look closely at the video you will notice he is buried in a large amount of rubble. Some of this rubble looks rectangular implying it's part of the support structure of the Citadel. And unfortunately a good example of this is that the rubble looks a lot like what they showed on TV after the World Trade Centers fell.

If Shepard was waking up on the street after Harbinger almost killed him with the laser there wouldn't be that much rubble laying around him and it would look more like what we saw when Shepard is running toward the beam. It seems to me like it's a way to continue the story if Bioware chooses to like Halo 3 did when MC gets in the stasis pod.

Or maybe we're just wise enough to not take everything so literally and actually give human intelligence the credit it deserves?

I'll admit that there's a lot about the indoctrination theory which could just be explained away as "bad writing," but there's some stuff which is completely undeniable.

1. After you shoot Anderson, you're bleeding in the same spot where you shot him.

2. When you wake up from getting hit with Harbinger's beam, you hear that "the entire force was decimated, nobody got to the beam." Why didn't the person saying that see Shepard?

3. The first time you see the kid, in a duct on Earth, when Shepard gets interrupted by Anderson and the boy disappears, a Reaper growl can be heard. In one of the books, it's explained that this noise occurs when a reaper indoctrination attempt is thwarted.

4. James hearing an unusual "hum" on the Normandy. This line of dialogue would be completely pointless if it wasn't a hint that there's some semblence of indoctrination going on.

5. The rachni queen talks about how "oily shadows" caused her people to become indoctrinated once again. Later on in Shepard's dreams of the burning kid, you can see shimmering black, oily shadows, and at the end of the game when you're talking with the Illusive man, there are clear black, shadowy lines on the edge of the screen.

6. Shep's eyes. If you pick either "control" or "synthesis" - the options which the reapers want you to pick - your eyes very clearly become like The Illusive Man's, and before that, Saren's, two indoctrinated people. On the other hand, in "destroy," where you defy the reapers, your eyes very clearly remain the same.

More astute gamers will also note that the final area on the Citadel is actually a mixture of the Cerberus base, the Collector base, and the Shadow Broker's lair, all things which could just be assembled from Shepard's memories.

Why would the writers include any of these things if the ending was meant to be taken literally? If you can explain these things, then sure, maybe the theory is just a bad attempt to grasp at straws and believe the ending was good. But don't go around calling all of us butthurt because we're able to see and interpret things that you can't.

All points are made moot by the way the scene continues on after his "indoctrination". If he chose synthesis or control why show him the Normandy fleeing the blast? or the Mass Relays exploding?

By that point Shepard would have been under their control, they had no need to show him that. Surely they would have created something more positive if they had as well? The Mass relays going boom would wipe out billions, strand colonies and leaving them without food or medical care. That wouldn't be something positive enough to reinforce indoctrination.

Regarding being unable to see and interpret things, I have read the theory and I can certainly see what the nutters like you claim to see but I retain the ability to see it in a rational way. So I see it for what it really is, your all basically claiming "there was a tuft of grass on Rannoch, he is indoctrinated" or "see how that corpse in the Citadel was stacked? that's a representation of the brotherhood of singularitarianism, that means hes indoctrinated too!"

Unless you want to start tackling some of the aformentioned points and stop throwing words like "nutter" around?

The whole point of indoctrination is that the victim genuinely believes they are acting for the good of the galaxy

you're essentially breaking free from the reapers and denying their indoctrination attempt

Why bother making the rachni queen mention "oily shadows" in the context of indoctrination if the oily shadows Shepard sees in his dream aren't significant at all? Why would the codex of ME2 bother to mention that people suffering from indoctrination hear buzzing, then have James complain of hearing a buzzing noise, only for it to mean nothing?

Exactly, the destruction of the Mass Relays would kill billions instantly and doom billions more to suffering and a slow death through starvation and war. Thats not a good way to convince someone they are acting in anyone's best interests. Besides it still misses the point, if the theory is true by that point Shepard's indoctrination was complete so why risk breaking the indoctrination by showing him the destruction of the Relays? The Reapers could have shown him anything, so why not show him that the control/synthesis worked and everything was shiny and happy?

Why bother with the indoctrination at all? The attack on the conduit had failed and Shepard would have been critically wounded, maybe even dying and completely at the mercy of Harbinger. There was no way they could stop Harbinger, it would have been more logical for Harbinger to either finish him off or capture Shepard and take him away to be indoctrinated at leisure rather than try to do it in a hurry in the ruins of London.

Then there are the endings where Earth gets destroyed and noone survives the crash of the Normandy. What does that have to do with Indoctrination? Why if your EMS is low do you only get the option to destroy the Reapers, which is supposedly the way to escape the indoctrination attempt. The allied assault was a failure yet they try to indoctrinate him by only giving the hallucination that would allow him to escape Reaper control?

Here is one of the Earth destroyed endings, how can the indoctrination theory fit that at all?

So why is that scene like the others? If that whole scene is an hallucination caused by an Indoctrination attempt why bother at all? If he was dead he wouldn't be having the hallucination, and the loss of the fleet means they have no need to indoctrinating him if he was alive.

The reapers just couldn't be bothered to indoctrinate him because they had won, and so Shepard ends up dreaming on his own.

Or, maybe Shepard is dreaming on his own regardless of what ending you get - it is possible that the "dream" is just Shepard's visual representation of the indoctrination attempt, and the reapers might not even be aware that Shepard is experiencing this dream, but are just unintentionally causing it because they try to indoctrinate him while he's unconscious. If your EMS is too low, Shepard ends up dying before the reapers are able to indoctrinate him, and he goes out envisioning all his friends dying horribly. If your EMS is high enough, though, Shepard lives long enough for Harbinger to indoctrinate him, which is why you get more endings.

Now you are really grasping at straws.

Maybe, but your evidence isn't really hard proof. It doesn't discount all the other clues and bits, unless you manage to put down all these possibilities

You seem fairly sensible, do you really believe that Shepard had a dream as he was dying about the Reapers trying to indoctrinate him by only offering him the option that would allow him to escape indoctrination attempt? I doubt that are daft enough to believe that. Also I don't know how you can have harder proof than one of the endings completely contradicting the indoctrination theory

If you do a near perfect playthrough and choose the middle road ( unification of synthetic and organic life) you get a cutscene at the end where a small child asks Shepard (yes it says the name) when it can go to the stars (and the answer is someday you will).

Well I'll never be able to look at male shep the same way again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpeRk1YFn8s&ob=av3e