Yet another triple-A title has received wildly conflicting reviews: professional critics seem overly generous with perfect scores, while players use unfairly low ratings to spite game creators over certain decisions.

The PC version of Mass Effect 3 simultaneously dons grades of 93/100 and 25/100 on Metacritic, though we imagine neither is accurate. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere between both extremes.

Unless you have faith in a particular source, finding said truth requires you to digest an encyclopedia's worth of info. Although we don't review them, we've been known to partake in a PC game from time to time.

As such, we've spent a few hours reading reviews in our effort to decide whether Mass Effect is worth the investment. Here are some common opinions we've found among Webgoers (professional and otherwise):

  • If you enjoyed the first two games, you'll probably like ME3 too. How much you'll enjoy it isn't certain, so don't buy the game with hopelessly high expectations.
  • ME3's greatest selling point seems to be that it succeeds in offering closure, which is rare in a day when so many companies release uninspired annual clones.
  • Because it focuses on delivering closure, you'll likely want to experience the previous titles (especially ME2) before ME3 – despite BioWare's claims to the contrary.
  • Multiplayer is debatably the weakest link. Many agree that ME3's combat improves on ME2's and while multiplayer is fun, it's just a tired wave-based survival mode.
  • Negative reviews tend to complain about some combo of ME3's "dumbed down" experience, its day one DLC, lack of polish on PC or the forced use of EA's Origin.