Oh! I love Patrick Weekes.
I don't know, though. I felt it. I very much felt the ending. It was tragic, genuinely distressing, and I very much had the weight of the decision upon my shoulders. I also think it made a lot more sense than people give it credit for.
The ideas that the fans bandy around tend to make less sense than the actual ending. A normal human - a fairly charismatic and battle-scarred human, but a human regardless - should have an option to talk down the reapers? By communicating with an AI that once had control of them but pretty much has no contact with them any more? Yeah, good luck with that. [SNIP, lets not go there please - XJDenton] Getting the ancient-and-forever race of superintelligent machines to disregard trillions of years of eyewitness evidence by spending a few minutes talking to the reapers' estranged godmother? Not a chance. The catalyst's powerless. Even if you can convince the little boy thing, (and I think you probably can! It's opened up because it wants to change, wants to delegate the decision - I think it's already convinced of your greater wisdom, to be honest) it still can't do anything about it except control, destroy or synthesise.
That said, a lot of the things that Patrick suggests are things I'd really, really have liked to have seen implemented. It's how the final battle looked in my head. I've never minded the details staying in my head, but I agree that if the writing is the sole effort of one man, it does kind of show. What we've got's good. There are a lot of very exciting, very strong moments - it's the dramatic conclusion the series earned. But what could've been would've been that much better. Once you stop listening to critics, you probably become much happier. Once you stop listening to editors, though... well, you become George Lucas.
The comments on the article are more depressing, though, by my buck. I don't like how society seems to hold cynicism up on a pedestal. It shows that you're discriminating, that you're not naive, you're untrickable. Like a self-styled Sherlock Holmes. But cynicism has about as much to do with real intelligence as Rolf Harris has to do with kangaroos. They're from a similar ballpark, and I'm sure they've crossed paths a few times, but the vast majority of the time they're in two completely different words. Misplaced cynicism is just as foolish as misplaced optimism, but twice as obnoxious. Optimism doesn't carry quite the same arrogance - "I'm above your trickery," etc.
Also - today's d-day! Rebellion releases today. Saved up 240,000 credits or so, might be getting at least one new character if I'm lucky - though I won't be entirely surprised if I'm not. Drove myself to despair trying to unlock the Resurgence fellows - still don't have either of the geth or the batarian sentinel. This random unlock system leaves me very frustrated indeed. Turns a fun game into a chore. Just one new guy would be lovely, though. And I mean new new. I'll take a geth in a pinch, I suppose.
As ever, there are delays in getting it online. Joy.