Someone actually died! (ME 2 SPOILERIFIC)

[Irony's Acolyte]

1. I wasn't irked by how someone didn't have to die like in ME1 but I was somewhat annoyed at how easy it is to get everyone through. I figured since it was a suicide mission it would be harder but since it's pretty easy to get everyone's loyalty and all the upgrades even if you don't know how to do it perfectly, it's not that hard to make sure everyone makes it through.
2. I did this a little bit to make sure the people who died weren't people I liked. My first playthrough is my main playthrough and is the one that I am going to port over to ME3 first and as such I didn't want to figure out how to make a perfect playthrough, I wanted to just play through the game making the decision I wanted to and then living with the consiquences rather than loading an older save everytime somthing didn't go my way. Because of that I lost 3 team members on the final mission: Legion, Jacob, and Zaeed. I wanted to have it feel realistic (It's supposed to be a suicide mission, it's a surprice anyone makes it out at all) so even though Legion and Jacob died and will be missed (I don't really care that much about Zaeed), I satisfied with the results. To me it feels like a great victory over the odds that nonetheless had a couple sad happenings in it.
3. One time I sent Grunt as the second fire squad leader and for some reason he didn't make it. Garrus is able to shrug off his wounds but Grunt can't? What's up with that? I know Garrus is a badass but Grunt is well... Grunt! He's suppose to be "the perfect krogan" but yet he can't survive a couple hits? I find that hard to believe.

4. for the "TASKS" ....... yea huge spoilers....... When selecting your fire squad choose Miranda or Garrus and for tech send Tali or Legion (by the way I had tali's loyalty but not legions so I sent her yet she still died so I think you need both so they don't mess with each others omni tool or something)...

You need to make sure that the fire squad leader is loyal and competent as well as the engineer. In my playthrough I had an unloyal Zaeed as the fire squad leader while a loyal Legion went through the pipes. Legion took a bullet to the face sadly. I don't know if you need both Tali's and Legion's loyalty for the chosen engineer to survive because I managed to keep both their loyalties. I don't think that it matters though, I think you just need the above criteria.

 

[Awexsome]

I almost had a runthrough of just what I wanted for the last mission. Priorities were Tali and Garrus, they were the 'go back to last save' kind of important. Right off the bat Jack took a laser through the ship... missed an upgrade I didn't know about.

Sent Jacob through the vents since he volunteered n' all and would figure he'd die. He did.

Picked Samara for the biotic part and thought she'd die since she wasn't loyal. Turns out she got Grunt killed. Sad face. Meanwhile Garrus was kicking ass and taking names as the other squad leader.

Sent Thane back with the survivors (rescued them all since I left ASAP)

Beat up the final boss with Garrus and Tali and Miranda was lying dead on the ground from holding the line. Added bonus. Good thing too because Mordin probably would've gone down instead had an unloyal Miranda not been the cannon fodder based on what other posts are saying.

So I'm playing through again to get a perfect runthrough with no deaths but I'd be perfectly happy with that runthrough if Samara had died instead of Grunt.

 

[Denamic]

1. Did it irk you somewhat that no one HAD to die as in the first one?
2. Did you find yourself picking and choosing who died in order to change things up?
3. Did any of those said deaths catch you off-guard? Are any of them really cool?

1: No.
2: You can't, really. I once had Jack being disloyal and it made Grunt die.
3: Yes. Did not expect Grunt to die.

 

[Tdc2182]

Played through it once, without upgrading my ship at all (sort of).

Lost Butch, Robocop, Frog Man, and Agent 47 (Kraos? I believe his name was, the only one of whom died who I actually gave a shit about). In the end I kept Spacesuit, But I didnt get the sexytime till after I beat the main mission, so it kind of felt like filler material, not as effectful ( < See what I did there? ) as if I would have done it beforehand. But all in all, I am going to let that be the way the game was.

I feel as though it has more of a personal effect (<again, lulz) if I let the game stay the way it ended up, no matter if I liked it or not. That is how true entertainment works, and the story will really hit home in the heart as the trilogy wraps up.

Played through it once, without upgrading my ship at all (sort of).

Lost Butch, Robocop, Frog Man, and Agent 47 (Kraos? I believe his name was, the only one of whom died who I actually gave a shit about). In the end I kept Spacesuit, But I didnt get the sexytime till after I beat the main mission, so it kind of felt like filler material, not as effectful ( < See what I did there? ) as if I would have done it beforehand. But all in all, I am going to let that be the way the game was.

I feel as though it has more of a personal effect (<again, lulz) if I let the game stay the way it ended up, no matter if I liked it or not. That is how true entertainment works, and the story will really hit home in the heart as the trilogy wraps up.

Edit: Should probably answer the OP's question

1. No, it made the game so much more gripping and worthwhile. Quite sadly, knowing someone was going to die actually was one of the things that was really keeping me intrested.
2. Again, I only played through it once, And made myself do all the loyalty missions. I learned that shortly before I was about to enter it, you had to upgrade your ship, So I attempted to do that than just decided to screw it and go in.
3. 47's death caught me be slight surprise, and so did all the people who died on the ship as you were flying away from the shooters, but I really didnt care about any of them, so it wasnt to bad.

 

[Cyenwulf]

Only lost Miranda.. didn't care - She was a stupid ***** anyways.

 

[[Insert Name Here]]

I was annoyed. I wanted more of my team members to die, 3 or 4, instead of only 1. The only one that died was Subject Zero.

 

[Aidinthel]

I somehow made all the right decisions on my first try without a walkthrough, so everyone survived. Still not entirely sure how I pulled that one off, I'm usually really bad at that sort of thing.

 

[TPiddy]

1. Did it irk you somewhat that no one HAD to die as in the first one?
2. Did you find yourself picking and choosing who died in order to change things up?
3. Did any of those said deaths catch you off-guard? Are any of them really cool?

1: No.
2: You can't, really. I once had Jack being disloyal and it made Grunt die.
3: Yes. Did not expect Grunt to die.

Actually I just went through the same thing! Samara wasn't loyal and Grunt died.... Samara died too... I lost 4 people!

 

[Uszi]

I working on my second Renegade play through.

Renegade Shep is a lone survivor, he was the only one to survive the attack by pirates.
He is also ruthless, and got his entire unit killed.

Lets just say... History will probably repeat itself.

P.S. I thought my psychological profile was hilarious during the conversation about whether or not Anderson and Udina should pick me as a Spectre. "Hmmm,he has a habit of getting everyone else but himself killed. PERFECT!"