Turns out Mass Effect 3 is controversial. Some people like its DLC, ending and storyline, some don't, and some want to see the entire BioWare team thrown into pools of mud and flogged for days to pay for the things they put in their own game. Franchise executive producer and director Casey Hudson seems to be taking the mixed reactions in stride, and even has some simple, logical reasons behind a few of the supposed scandals, such as Mass Effect 3's day-one DLC, From Ashes.

"I think a lot of the common sense is prevailing," Hudson told Digital Trends. "Initially, it was spun in a direction that suggested that we had taken the lore out of Mass Effect 3 and were holding it inside the DLC only, which now the people who actually have played Mass Effect 3 and the DLC they know that that's not true."

From Ashes is an optional piece of content not integral to the main story, Hudson noted.

"When we finish a game, we finish it many months before it actually hits the shelves and that team goes on to work on something else that in those intervening months represent millions of dollars of development time.... So in this case, we chose to work on a DLC which people really enjoyed for Mass Effect 2 and we also wanted to make sure that people had it as an opportunity to build it into their first play-through if they wanted that as an optional thing."

As for the ending, Hudson said he likes its mystery and interpretation possibilities, and having a reactive ending is better than one that falls flat and fades out. "I didn't want the game to be forgettable, and even right down to the sort of polarizing reaction that the ends have had with people -- debating what the endings mean and what's going to happen next, and what situation are the characters left in -- that to me is part of what's exciting about this story."

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/14/ma...-common-sense/