Look at what one Reaper did in Mass Effect 1
Look at what a dead reaper did in Mass Effect 2
Now, because they lost their fukking minds trying to make shyt War of The Worlds instead of following the dark energy plot they'd set up, you ended up with shyt like this in Mass Effect 3:
Mass Effect made zero sense in all directions simultaneously. But I didn't care because it was at least fun. Most of the time.
Don't even get me started on Cerberus going from a sidequest to... whatever the fukk they turned into
Mass Effect is my favorite video game of all-time
But, I'll never pretend that it was perfect.
You are absolutely right