Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 4422 Ratings

  • Summary: BioWare completes the Mass Effect Trilogy with Mass Effect 3. Earth is burning. Striking from beyond known space, a race of terrifying machines have begun their destruction of the human race. As Commander Shepard, an Alliance Marine, the only hope for saving mankind is to rally the civilizations of the galaxy and launch one final mission to take back the Earth. Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 23
  3. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. Mar 6, 2012
    100
    It may not have the sheer landmass of their just-released MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic and it might not stand the test of time quite the way simpler, more focused games like Knights or the original two Baldur's Gate titles did, but it's still a wonderful game with tons of content, great production values, a masterful eye for humor and drama, and a cast of lovable characters that BioWare has been carefully slow-playing for the last four-plus years.
  2. Mar 13, 2012
    100
    Mass Effect 3 will force you to make tough decisions on a galactic scale. You have to think them through and you feel bad about yourself afterwards. It really kicked me in the emotional equivalent of testicles. What a spectacular finale to the trilogy! [April 2012, p.44]
  3. Mar 19, 2012
    99
    Anyone who has invested any amount of time in the previous games will enjoy watching the final chapter of Shepard's tale unfold, and among the feelings of excitement and joy as they meet and fight alongside old friends for the fate of the galaxy, they will also feel just a tinge of disappointment and heartbreak as they bid farewell to the colorful universe and memorable characters BioWare has created.
  4. Mar 31, 2012
    85
    Finishing a trilogy is always difficult. Tying off dozens of story threads which had been woven by players into many different tapestries is a daunting task. Mass Effect 3 is the first game that succeeded at this colossal undertaking.

See all 23 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. 10
    This is one of the best endings that i ever seen! The third part of the trilogy tell us about the all world, not only Shepard's history, and a lot of people can not understand this. But without all DLC the story is not full. I is highly recommending this series to every smart man or woman. Hudson is genius (not every one can understand his mind), and i'm waiting for new part of Mass Effect, but without Shepard( i hope), because his place ONLY in the trilogy/ I love him, Hudson, Bioware and Mass Effect/ Good LUCK! Expand
  2. The only reason Mass Effect 3 doesn't get a perfect 10 from me is the ending, plain and simple. Even since the release of the extended cut, I can't help but feel that BioWare didn't give this series the conclusion it deserves. That said, the game is absolutely fantastic, and by far the greatest sci-fi RPG to be released in a long, long time. Expand
  3. 5
    In some respects I enjoyed this game. In others, I absolutely loathed it. I'll start with what I enjoyed. I enjoyed the multiplayer...Weirdly, I enjoyed it more than the game. It's quite addictive...and then I enjoyed...Damn...Catching up with characters from the series I guess...That's about it.

    The SP campaign felt like a real chore to me. The textures were pathetic in places. Pretty much no graphical options on the PC. The animations are laughable sometimes. Lots of clipping. There are a ton of bugs and glitches that I encountered and a few random freezes/crashes. The cover system is a completely broken mess. The writing was half-assed. Getting through the game to see the conclusion was a massive chore and not really fun at all. Regardless of any of your choices, there are only 3 endings with very slight variations. None of them are satifiying, and if you want to see a different one from the one you chose the first time, you have to sit through about half an hour of unskippable cutscenes and painfully...Really painfully slow 'gameplay'. I am not kidding, I actually put a weight on my keyboard, on the 'w' , went and made a cup of coffee and came back and I had only just arrived at where I needed to get to...Really, REALLY poor design, story and gameplay decisions...It just feels incredibly unpolished and unrefined, and generally a step back from the 2nd game. My guess is that they had nearly everyone in Bioware working on their Star Wars title and ME3 was pretty much thrown together.
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  4. I'm not really sure what happened here but this is not a Mass Effect game...

    Mass Effect games had smartly written stories and let you make
    decisions.

    This game is not that AT ALL.

    It does have some nice music, though not as good as ME2. I will give 3 points for that.
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See all 1933 User Reviews