you voiced everything perfectly.. my sentiments exactly… i agree the endings felt rushed.. i mean essentially they are all the same endings, give or take a couple animations..and colour changes.. but what i cant forgive are the few major plot holes they left.

1) is your point about the crew and normandy in the relay jump at the end.. the last time i saw them, they were all gearing up for the fight, on EARTH.. part of operation hammer, and joker was flying the normandy in operation sword… so the question has to raised.. how did they all get onto the normandy and into a relay mid battle? its totally out of character i mean wasnt ME2 about creating a team that would follow you on a suicide mission, i cant believe the crew would abandon you after they followed on a mission they werent expected to survive!

2) the second plot hole comes from the arrival dlc in ME2 in which a relay gets destroyed condeming the batarian colony to die..we learn that destroying a relay destroys the system its in….. so surely when the citadel goes boom, with the sol relay as well as all the other relays shouldnt that mean earth would go bye bye, as well as tuchanka, and pretty much every other system and race in the galaxy… you effectively do the reapers job for them and kill everyone anyway? 

3) the god child also makes no sense… because it talk about how organics and sythetics cant live in peace and so gives you those insane choices… but i mean in MY game i brokered peace between geth and quarian.. proving the god child wrong.. peace is possible.. and EDI proves it as well..

the game was fantastic but it felt that the last ten minutes ruined it for me.. it was like the last ten minutes were written by someone who never played the first 2 games themselves, or by someone who hadnt read the script of the rest of the game leading up to that point!

though they have left themselves that get out of jail card, with the “secret” ending of sheppard survivning if you destroy the reapers and have a high enough readiness, because they could say.. hey sheppard broke indoctrination and it was a dream after being hit with the laser.. carry on to the real ending!… but it should never have come to that…

You hit the nail on the head with your thoughts on the ending. The only thing I could add to what you’ve brought up was the destruction of the Mass Relays. Ignoring the “Arrival DLC” and the, mass relay blow up = goodbye system, canon which Bioware put in place, I just need to know why. I mean the whole of galactic civilization revolves around the use of them. I guess somebody felt that the crippled galactic economy, billions of deaths, charred and useless worlds, debilitated galactic communications, loss of a unified galactic government, millions of refugees, stress on vital supplies (food and medicine mostly), and the just plain massive emotional turmoil everyone still alive will have to face just was just too easy for the allied races to overcome. So they went ahead and cut everybody off from everybody else and said to themselves “There, that’s good enough… It’s not like anybody playing the game will care anyway’”

Real ending
to Mass Effect 3

Destroying
the reapers is the real ending to ME3, and this is why. There are 2 reasons.

Reason 1: If Shepard weren’t indoctrinated

Firstly, the
AI in the citadel is wrong. It is making its decision to harvest all advanced
organic life based on the mistakes of his civilization. Remember, the reapers
looks like the race it harvests and the race that made sovereign also made the
keepers (hints: Chorban). Since sovereign said in ME1 that the citadel and the
mass relays were made by them, the patterns start to show. The first
civilization in the galaxy looked like sovereign and harbinger and they made
the citadel, the mass relays and the keepers. Something went horribly wrong
though and the reapers somehow took control. Presumably the first civilization experimented
with organic and synthetic life and something went wrong in the process,
leading to the annihilation of the species and reaper dominance.

The AI in
the citadel witnessed this and concluded that all organic life will inevitably
make the same mistakes his civilization did. Though his logic doesn’t make
sense to us, think of edi or the geth and they tirelessly trying to understand
organics.

Remember,
the AI also said that the reapers were his solution. This leads me to believe
that he/it somehow took control of the reapers and used them to harvest all
advanced organic life to – as he says himself-“Protect us”. But we have already
shown to ourselves that it is possible to coexist with synthetics (geth) and
that the AI in fact were wrong.

With this
in mind:

Why
choosing synthesis isn’t the way to go: Shepard isn’t god. I believe nature should be
allowed to go its own path, and if evolution one day brings us to that point,
then it was the nature’s intent all along. But as I said nature must figure
that out not Shepard.  By picking
synthesis you practically bypassed nature and decided the fate of all life in
the galaxy before it is ready for it.

Why
controlling the reapers is wrong:  We don’t even know if we
actually have control. Either way the reapers have been terrorizing the galaxy
for millions of way killing organics in the most horrific ways. They are even
made from organics! Something like that shouldn’t be allowed to live anymore.
Anyways, another good reason is that organizations like Cerberus will rise
again, and what if they get control of them? 
No, no one should be allowed to possess power like that.

Why
destroying the reapers is the right thing: As I said earlier, we have already proven
that organics and synthetics can coexist (geth), and that the AI in the citadel
is wrong. Unfortunately the geth and edi dies, but then again something has to
be sacrificed in this war for the greater good. It just happened to be the
geth. But if you think about it isn’t all that bad. Synthetics are created by
organics, if synthetics are extinguished, we can simply create more of them. We
can create more of geth, because that was how synthetics were supposed to be
created…. by us. If organics were to be annihilated, that unique organic
life form (humans, asari) is lost forever. Who created us??? You see my point?
We do not know why we exist, what our purpose is. Synthetics do.  

Destroying
the reapers end the cycle, avenges the countless of organics lost to the
reapers, and the geth can be rebuild. Also Shepard survives the explosion. BEST
ENDING PERIOD!

PS! The
only reason why destroying the reapers is marked red is because edi and the
geth dies. If you ask me red and blue should switch spot. Controlling the
reapers is far worse.

Reason 2: If Shepard is indoctrinated:

Back in
London, after Shepard gets hit by harbingers laser (molten metal) he doesn’t
wake up. The ending part represents the reapers trying to indoctrinate Shepard.
If you choose control or synthesis the reapers succeeds, but if you choose the
destroy option you break free of the indoctrination and wake up in London. This
means ME3 isn’t the end of the series. BEST ENDING PERIOD!

Now a little of topic:

To those of
you who think that all organics are doomed on earth because the mass relays are
no more: If you had paid attention, you would have known that FTL is possible
without the mass relays. How do you think joker escapes the collector ship in
ME2? Or just listen to edi in ME3 when you explore the galaxy. She says “faster
than light acquired, reapers eluded”. Why do you need fuel to travel to other
systems in the same nebula? It’s still light years away you know.  

choosing synthesis isn’t the way to go:{{ Shepard isn’t god. I believe nature should beallowed to go its own path, and if evolution one day brings us to that point,then it was the nature’s intent all along. But as I said nature must figurethat out not Shepard.}} By pickingsynthesis you practically bypassed nature and decided the fate of all life inthe galaxy before it is ready for it.
Whycontrolling the reapers is wrong: We don’t even know if weactually have control. Either way the reapers have been terrorizing the galaxyfor millions of way killing organics in the most horrific ways. They are evenmade from organics! {{Something like that shouldn’t be allowed to live anymore.}}
IF you {{noticed}}, you’ve placed part of your decisions on an occums razor thin bit of… logic.. Which deity we talking there?

Reapers cannot indoctrinate Sheppard, he’s been drafted by the being in the citadel. The area there where no one can gain access short of the little crawlers Shep helped snoop on years before by scanning them. The system of events points at three antagonists: organic life, the child shaped being/program/citadel entity/pure intellect and three the reapers/workers/memory cells. Then the three choices for everything in, oh, about 30 or so seconds..YIkes!!. Hard to cram that into the last, what, ten minutes of a trilogy. NO wonder the questions outstrip the answers, even the finale cut scenes cannot speak the thousand plus words required to explain a few million years old misunderstanding between two super races and the rest of the galaxy.Read more: Mass Effect 3 Review & Ending Discussion! http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2012/03/23/lets-talk-mass-effect-3-review-the-ending.htm#ixzz1qwtyJo9F

The thing about the indoctrination theory is that, if it was put into the game, we’d all be hailing Bioware as the greatest writers of fiction since Shakepeare. But because, as well as it fits, the indoctrination ending wasn’t in the game, people assume that if Bioware releases the extended ending DLC and it confirms that Shepard was indoctrinated, people will think Bioware just stole the theory from the fans. If that makes sense.

With that said, the indoctrination theory fits. It makes sense that it was cut out of the game because the game had already been delayed a few months and supposedly was quite over budget. And, y’know, EA publish it. They’ll milk a successful franchise any way they can, even if it’s as ridiculous as selling the ending seperately. I know the DLC is actually free, but only because of the backlash in my opinion, EA had no choice.