I personally never understood why some people think ME2 was off point about fighting the reapers.

Because those Prothean idiots encrypted that exact part of the archives. When Liara became a Shadow Broker, Hackett contacted her and she found a decryption key for it. There was also the Task Force Aurora, investigating Leviathan, and research on Sovereign's remains.

But in the end, no one had the Reapers as their most urgent priority, maybe except the Andromeda Initiative founders.

Don't know, maybe he thought that they can translate the unencrypted part alone, not a rational decision rather.
Liara did something between ME1 and ME2: obtained Shepard's body and gave it to Cerberus. There's a chance that they would have it even without her, but still.
Unknown if Hackett knew about Liara being the Shadow Broker and who contacted whom first.

Doesn't hurt to ask. She would likely agree about investigating to find out if there's anything of worth.

Yeah that's it. Instead of continuing her study of the protheans, she decides its more important to take armor from a dead body to put in a display case like its a prize, and then have the dna from that dead body to place all over her apartment. I laughed in the dlc when she says she finally can help Shepard find a way to stop the reapers. Nothing was stopping her during the 2 years.

That depends on if the dlc is completed. As I said, if it is, he contacts her, and if it isn't completed, she contacts him. So, how does Hackett know she's the broker, if the dlc is completed?

If I had my way a yahg might still be SB and Shiala would have been around for the entire MET.  Or at least returned in ME3 as a squadmate.

Does he know? ME: Homeworlds 4 shows Liara speaking with him from her SB office but he doesn't refer to her as "Broker". If he knows, maybe Liara told it him herself.

I don't mind the reapers at all. THey were as much part of ME as everything else.
I just think they got a little too specific with them way too fast.

I'd have preferred it if the reapers had stayed a rather elusive threat in ME2. They also had pretty much the perfect setup for it actually. At the end of ME1, the reapers are still trapped in dark space, so they cannot pose a direct threat but they are this massive looming shadow. Shepard is about to search the galaxy for clues to to stop them. He does this, not because he is super special or because he's "the chosen one" or whatever but simply because with the prothean cypher, he is the best qualified.
The reaper setup did allow for Shepard to go on fairly not reaper related adventures throughout ME2 and still keep the overall ark to try and find some defense against their eventual return.

Now, ME2 as it was even took advantage of this to some degree but it did it in really weird way. Shepard is not doing what he does because his ME1 expriences qualify him. Technically, you don't necessarily need Shepard to check out the collector threat. He's now put in charge by TIM because he suddenly is (to quote Miranda) "a hero, a bloody icon" (whom still, no one listens to for some reason). And he is all over the galaxy on fairly reaper-unrelated adventures but it's to assemble a new team because they decided to just let rocks fall on the old one, so to speak.
And while he is out to fight a new reaper threat (the collectors), this in no way brings him closer to understanding the true scope of the reaper problem, let alone finding some sort of viable defence (a plot point, the foreshadowing of which would have greatly benefited ME3).

So IMO, ME2's problem are not the reapers. ME2's problem are the first 10 minutes of ME2.

ME2 just have poor continuity to the larger Mass Effect storyline. I wouldn't mind if its a different scifi game like the premise is decent; you're killed off and resurrected and got recruited into a terrorist organization who is maybe shady and you're assigned to kill the Collectors which is an honorable way of saving the galaxy shit or completely serving the interest of that terrorist organization that thrive on human supremacy which was also glossed over as being tolerable and accepted .

But Shepard was already an existing character and ME2 completely ignore all the things you did in ME1; your death got glossed over. You save the Citadel and people just think you're supposed to be dead and probably lying about your death all these time. Only two of your friends returned to you while the rest barely have enough screen time because you're busy with your shiny new crew's daddy issues. You have six different origin stories and they only get acknowledge on emails. ME2 even have a Reaper corpse which conveniently self-destruct. But did Shepard send all the footage back to Citadel? About the presence of another reaper corpse in Milky way? no...


Most of ME3 span on Shepard's last minute trying to gain significant allies while millions of people die each day. Stuff like this should've been done back in ME2. Talking to Wrex about curing the genophage. The Quarian admirals about the Geth. I would've love to reconnect with Alliance and trading valuable intel showing that you're not working for Cerberus but being a double agent. Talking with the Council for a chance to work together instead of expecting them to do something for you. I would've loved going to Palaven and Thessia before the Reapers invasion. But I can't can I?

In ME2, we hear a lot of people, including TIM and most of the Normandy crew putting a very soft face on Cerberus' goals and stance towards other races.

However, at the end of ME3 (at Cronos Station), we also learn the TIM very deliberately wanted to present this face to Shepard in order to make him/her accept working with them more easily. It is also revealed that the crewmembers of the SR2 were hand picked by TIM because their views on Cerberus were more "romantic" (such as Kelly Chambers for example).

This is actually very consistent with the tactics of may populist hate groups today. You keep a more moderate wing going, that is still somewhat socially acceptable and you use their more socially acceptable statements to muddy the waters, relativize the hate speech or actions of the more hardcore members and generally gradually move the goal posts of what is acceptable.

TIM effectively puts you in an opinion bubble right from the start of ME2 (at least before you start recruiting you team). I'm sure he also has a facebook group.

So maybe, going back to what aoibhealfae said, ME2 has aged well in the sense that it practically let's you play a problem that is very relevant these days.

Don't forget that the clown called Anderson says its up to Shepard to find a way to stop the reapers. He also doesn't give much thought about the missing colonists. Then he says he thought Shepard was dead. That tells me the Alliance never made any attempt to confirm Shepard is dead. Of course it didn't help that some stupid asari failed to inform them that Shepard's body is in the hands of Cerberus. Then there's the one's who were with Shepard chasing Saren. What did they do? They all turned into ****roaches scattering all over the galaxy like nothing ever happened.

So yes, it was easy for my Shepard to work with Cerberus. My Shepard flips the bird at the Alliance, and Anderson.