as far as I can tell you're not actually on the island or in the environment exactly. You're just seeing it as a representation of your state of mind after your car crash and before your death, when you know that Esther is already dead. Being able to pick things up and get distracted by the physicality of your environment would reinforce the idea that it really exists, and is significant to the plot as a place you're actually in about which you have to figure something out. The inability to interact feels to me like a deliberate part of the setup since it enforces a sense of distance from your environment, and shifts your focus onto paying attention to the narration and the appearance of the island itself as the only clues to the plot. Consider too that the straight-jacketed feeling you describe is actually deliberate, since as far as I can tell your character is really strapped in the wreckage of a crashed car (or perhaps comatose in a hospital bed), slowly dying.

The main character keeps waking up in a mental hospital, where all the other characters are patients or staff, and the protagonist doesn't know if that's the real world or not. Also, all the crazies are "I'm Napoleon" level silly-crazies.

when I reflexively shot the religious nut who attacks your partner. It genuinely surprised me that I chose to do that and I felt devastated when I found out it wasn't a knife he was holding but a cross. I've literally never been so absorbed or moved by an in game choice in my life.

When I accidentally shot the religious guy like I mentioned earlier my reactions were horror and guilt, rather than oops! I'd better reload and do it "right".

spend a little less time in the virtual reality world... Poor Jayden wound up seeing VR tanks. Only slightly nuts, as opposed to what happens if you spend too much time!

Not TOO much in to it (only now just got a team together and am fighting the Collectors. But DAMN I do love it. Cerberus is...interesting. Their reputation around the galaxy kind of makes them out to be almost like a white supremist group, and I'm anticipating a massive betrayal, but we'll see.

The Normandy dropping you off on Mars

woke up on a Cerberus operating table

Sure, it would be great if she could retire with Liara, making billions of blue babies, but how likely was that, really? The series is about how doing right in a terrible war requires sacrifice, and the ultimate sacrifice did seem inevitable, in the end. I think a lot of people are upset because 1. Shepard had already cheated death twice, so we all felt sure she could do it again, and 2. the final scenes with your shipmates were really well done, leaving you with a strong desire to get Shepard home safe. But everybody dies eventually, why not do it in the most noble way possible? I also felt that my final tally of dead main characters was not too high - Ashley, Thane, Mordin, Zaeed, Legion, Anderson, Shepard, and none of them died cheap, either. I even saved as many of my unnamed crew as possible in ME2.

The other thing a lot of people seem to be upset about was that the crazy citadel monster was dressed as that kid Shepard couldn't save. Call me old fashioned, but I say a crazy, murderous, timeless monster that reads minds can dress any way it wants.

For my ending, I chose symbiosis, and I'll probably choose it again with renegade Shep, because I damn sure can't kill EDI or genocide the Geth, and controlling the reapers... The Illusive man was wrong, dammit. Besides, I got something in my eye seeing Joker step out of that ship standing up straight and giving EDI a hand.

I went with the symbiosis ending. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it, either. I personally thought that the organics with circuit boards was a bit silly, but also cute, so I went with it. I'm sad about Shepard dying because I had a relationsip with Garrus, but it was one of those stories where the main character has to sacrifice themselves in the end, so I glad they did that. It would have felt too perfect if she had survived. I know in other endings Shep can survive in the pile of rubble, but I personally get more closure with her death because if she had survived for me, then I'd be freaking out that she wouldn't be able to reunite with the Garrrus & the rest of the Normandy crew since they crash landed on that planet.

The only thing that was really emotionally upsetting for me was that the mass relays were destroyed, because now Wrex can't ever go home and raise his kid, and the Quarians won't make it home for generations, after they had just got their home world back, and so on with the other alien races. I was able to reconcile myself by saying that even though the soldiers can't go home, they can still communicate with their friends and family who did stay home via vidcomm, so at least they have that. But the fact that I was that emotionally involved in the story, to the point of getting upset about the destruction of the mass relays, really shows how good the story was overall, because I got attached. Also, I was only upset emotionally about it, not upset in a "this is bad story writing" way.

I felt conflicted with the harvesting thing, about how harvesting advanced species is a way to ascend them to a higher state of being. On the one hand, I thought it was neat that harvesting wasn't just straight out mass murder, but on the other, I thought it was silly that if the purpose of the cycle is to prevent synthetics from destroying organics, presenting synthetics as a bad thing, that the species that are harvested ascend to a higher state of being by becoming sentient synthetics. But I guess the whole point of that is that the reapers themselves are organic/synthetic symbiotic beings - it was just a a bit difficult to digest that bit (I had to discuss it with my partner before I felt okay with it).

So personally, I don't think it was a perfect ending, but it certainly wasn't a bad ending like other ME fans seem to be making it out to be. I'm quite satisfied with the whole symbiosis thing.

They ripped the main idea from Alastair Reynolds' "Revelation Space" - even the name Cerberus can be found in the latter. I read that and played ME3 in the beginning of the week when I had fever and I was quite groggy, and especially after gaming and then switching to the book, I got quite confused on my hazy fever state, because I kept wondering where Shepard was and why he didn't do anything in the book >.>

My renegade romanced Thane in ME2, and after he dies in the Citadel attack in ME3, no one says a goddamn thing about it! At least one of Shepard's friends - Garrus, maybe, or Liara, could have said "hey, sorry your lover just died, how you holding up?" but no, not only do they not comfort Shepard, but about five of them line up to romance her or come to her for advice immediately afterwards. And they can't stop talking about Kaidan, who just got a gun stuck in his face and didn't fucking die. I wanted to romance Samantha Traynor in this one, but if it has to happen right after Thane dies, I really don't have the heart for it. Maybe she could wait a few missions before sexy shower seductions, or could have gone for it when my ex was still alive but i hadn't heard from him for a year. I've tried a few mental tricks - pretending that the crew never knew about Shepard and Thane, or imagining that Shepard's in shock, but it just doesn't help, and I'm finding it difficult to finish my renegade run-through.

My Shepard's ME2-romance that continued in ME3 died mid-game, then got mysteriously resurrected for one cut scene nookie before the end of the world >.< That was goddamn traumatic since the death was, unsurprisingly, rather heavy shit.