I disliked all three of the ending greatly, but not because Shepard died. In fact, I actually was expecting that from the beginning. No what was really irritating about the end is, and the reason that it ruined the game for me, was that there was no closure at any point. This was supposed to be an ending to a trilogy that I have been following for years.
I have put in hundreds, literally hundreds, of hours to be able to see all the subtle differences between the various story lines and characters that you can build. I've always liked to see the interactions between the characters and that was the sole reason I played these games.
To see all of my time, money and effort come to this? Really, that is what I was waiting for? I wasn't upset about the end because it was sad; I was upset that all of my time and thought that I put into my story was gone in a single decision. The story wasn't mine anymore and my Shepard wasn't allowed to act in character.
Honestly, Commander Shepard, badass of the universe who told reapers to go to hell, would just listen to a computer program that is telling her that synthetics are going to destroy all organics every single time (I'm not even to go into depth about how this is contradicted in the game)? Wouldn't it seem more like Shepard to try to talk it down, you know like every other major boss in the series?
It felt like the entire premise of the game was thrown out the window and I was somehow watching the end of an entirely unrelated game. Why did they find it necessary to add in that bizarre little boy at the end when he wasn't even hinted at the entire game? Would it not have been a touching and powerful ending if Anderson and Shepard both just died watching what they had saved. The tragic loss of the hero would still be there, without any ridiculous plot twists.
Even if the endings now are kept, why not have an epilogue of some sort to explain what happen to all the other character that I have grown to care about over the years? I would be happy with the text boxes that we got in DA:O. I would pay for the damn ending just to be able to see what all my effort was worth.
So to conclude, the ending of Mass Effect 3 was so disheartening that I couldn't enjoy the rest of my 34 hours and 26 minutes of game play simply because of the last 10 minutes of the game. The heart, the spark that made the game fantastic, was just gone. I didn't want to play anymore knowing that my effort and time would all be for nothing. Again.