Mike

@joer22784 haha, yup - he's barely got a story, nor does he have a whole lot of significant dialogue. He's just there to kick some ass for you. Nothing wrong with that, but if I had to choose one squadmate to call "optional" it'd be him, not the Prothean.

@Cafecito I was trying to stay spoiler free, but it seems everyone's talking freely about the content of the DLC, so, here goes:

At first I didn't like the character. Character design aside, I was appalled at his Protheian supremacist attitude, and somewhat violent nature. After a few hours had elapsed, I came to realize that my dislike of the character came from expectations I had for the protheans based on hints and clues from the previous two games. I had imagined them as enlightened and benevolent beings, and finding out that they were actually controlling the galaxy through force was jarring.

I didn't like the character because he shattered my preconceptions about Protheans, and that made me realize that the character and all of his associated dialogue filled in an EXTREMELY important blank in the ME universe.. Given the strong reaction I had to him, whether or not I LIKED him became irrelevant - he's important to the lore, and it was a shame that Bioware didn't see fit to share him with everyone.

From Ashes isn't necessary to get the "full" ME3 experience, however, if you feel invested in the lore in any way shape or form, you should absolutely pick it up.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Bioware should have included it in the main game. I can think of at least one other character that would have been more appropriate as DLC (based on my currently incomplete play through) .

Some of the scenes featuring the character from From Ashes really fill in some significant details about the ME universe, and blocking players off from that content essentially blocks them from getting some info and answers they've been curious about for five years now.

To be clear, I'm not against characters as DLC, I'm against lore-heavy characters as DLC.

next headline:

Zyynga's next work in progress: Mini Aircraft

If Bieber's attorneys want to win this one, the Bieb is going to have to kill a paparazzi with a lance. It's the only way.

@Mazrael that's the point of these games - you keep hitting the same track over and over until you nail it. It can get a little repetitve, but with all the social features in this game there's always a score to beat giving you ample reason to keep going back. If that sort of thing doesn't appeal to you, yea, avoid the game. Give it an hour - if it doesn't "click" for you, (and by "click" I mean you want to keep trying to improve) then walk away.

@amythompson172

Yes, everyone run and preorder the game from his amazon affiliate link. You would have never known they carried it without his help, so why not give him a few dollars worth of ad revenue for filling you in, right?

Yea, his comment is spam - hopefully someone from the 'stiq will see that, and remove it.

@oO Wallace Oo lolol, I wish I could +1 your comment a million times.

I used to be a big fan of extreme sports games, but then Tony Hawk games started letting you get off the board and walk around, and it all sorta went downhill from there.

This game appears to embody everything I loved about the genre back in the day - I'm pretty damned excited about it.

No one single responsibility gets trumped by Skyrim. ALL responsibilities get shunned in favor of that game.