Mass Effect 2/YMMV

Mass Effect 2
"EDI: Really, Commander?...Probing Uranus."
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: The fans were generally very pleased to hear that Lance Henriksen would be returning as Admiral Hackett for the last piece of DLC.
 * Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
 * The Reave power is considered by many to be the best bonus talent in the second game, period. There is thereby no point in using any of the others.
 * The DLC weapons outclass all of the ingame weapons or are on par with the Infinity+1 Sword weapon of choice found halfway in the game. There is no reason to even pick up any of the other weapons like the Tempest and Vindicator when you already have the Locust and Mattock for example.
 * Contested Sequel: Most fans point to Mass Effect 2 as the high point of the series, citing its improved combat and streamlined inventory management and its in-depth exploration of individual characters thanks to recruitment and loyalty missions that function as A Day in the Limelight for individual crew members. There's also a significant faction that prefers the first game for its greater complexity, deeper RPG elements, and greater sense of exploration and scale and considers the second installment to be too streamlined. Another common point of criticism is that some characters have way less developement and lines than others, and that the main plot got neglected in favor of the Loyalty missions. These two factions have a tough time reaching common ground.
 * Crack Pairing: Jack x Miranda presumably interprets their dislike of each other (and possible Love Triangle with male Shepard) as Belligerent Sexual Tension.
 * Lampshaded in the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3, where Shepard can propose that they hook up. Both immediately ask for another drink.
 * Demonic Spiders: Scions. Their shockwave attack can instantly deplete your shields, it can hit you even if you are behind cover, and it has very long range. On top of all that, Scions can take a lot of damage before going down. Scions are the reason that the Reaper IFF mission has become That One Level for many players.
 * The various Pyros also qualify, as the flamethrower mechanics and the game's lack of Mercy Invincibility means that if they get close to Shepard and score a hit, Shepard will likely end up trapped in the hit animation as the Pyro roasts him/her to death. Not that it takes them long to do that in any event, as their flamethrowers can cause a lot of damage. The only saving grace is that Pyros only have a basic health bar, although even then they can take more punishment than most books.
 * The Engineers that Eclipse, the Shadow Broker and The Project deploy. They are shielded, spam combat drones to flush you out of cover, then nail you with incinerate attacks. And like good Engineers, they prefer to stick to cover.
 * Even Better Sequel: This is considered amongst the fandom to be The Empire Strikes Back of the Mass Effect trilogy. It even ends the same way, with Shepard looking out at the galaxy and the cliffhanger that the Reapers are now very close. The pack Lair of the Shadow Broker can be seen as this for the previous DLC packs, which makes it an Even Better Expansion to an Even Better Sequel.
 * Faux Symbolism:
 * A Shepard dies and and is resurrected by the Lazarus Project. Shepard must go to Omega and then a bar called Afterlife to recruit an Archangel. Later, Shepard must go to another bar named Eternity and a prison named Purgatory. With all the downloadable content, Shepard will have twelve followers they receive help from in order to save humanity.
 * There's also a gun called the Revenant.
 * Go ahead and pick the Renegade ending in the Overlord DLC. Does that final image look familiar at all?
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment:
 * During, Joker wonders if he's dooming the galaxy by . At one point he mutters, "...now I have to spend all day computing pi because Joker plugged in the Overlord." Then comes the Overlord DLC...
 * A YouTube user made a video that depicted the series ending like Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was meant as a joke, but turned out to be prophetic when the third installment came out six months later and the fans' reaction towards the ending being similar to Evangelion's 16 years earlier.
 * One of Jack's lines is "If I die, I'm haunting you, Shepard," a typical Badass Boast that shows her Hidden Depths that she believes in that sort of thing. In Mass Effect 3, those who have died haunt Shepard.
 * Game Breaker:
 * The Sentinel's Tech Armor. With the right upgrades, the cooldown times are short, when destroyed it automatically replenishes Shepard's natural shields and causes a wide pulse that stumbles nearby enemies, and when activated automatically sets squadmates' cooldowns to zero (the last one thanks to Good Bad Bugs).
 * The Mattock with Adrenaline Rush.
 * The Widow. And enough skill on the player's part to headshot enemies.
 * Genius Bonus:
 * The ship that Morinth left Illium on is the Demeter. In Greek mythology, Demeter was an extremely powerful goddess who lost her daughter to the underworld and walked the earth endlessly searching for her. Sounds a bit like a certain justicar...which makes this a literal Mythology Gag. For bonus points, the Demeter was also the name of the ship the Count travelled on in Dracula.
 * Does the name of Jacob's father's ship (the Hugo Gernsbeck) sound familiar to you? If you're a sci-fi buff, it should. Hugo Gernsbeck is generally considered the father of modern science fiction and founder of the Amazing Stories magazine. It's who the Hugo Award is named after. Although considering that the ship named after him is populated in the game by a bunch of self-centered jackasses who routinely perform Mind Rape on their crew, it's not the best tribute they could have given the father of modern science fiction...
 * Goddamn Bats: Husks, on any difficulty. They don't use guns, they just run up to you and start whacking you. Mowing them down before they can get to you can be hard because they move ridiculously fast. They also tend to swarm you while you're focused on trying to shoot down something else. They have a few Weaksauce Weaknesses (biotics, being set on fire, being frozen, being shot in the legs), but these tend to not be particularly useful if you're facing ten at once. Excepting Soldiers with a Revenant machinegun and Adrenaline Rush.
 * Or a single Adept or Vanguard (or Jack, which is really the same thing) with a well-leveled Shockwave. At that point, the difficulty shifts from "shoot them before they rip you to shreds" to "get them to line up for maximum awesome points."
 * Good Bad Bug:
 * Hitting melee halfway between the Claymore's reload animation causes it to auto-complete, and you can fire instantly with it. The Claymore is the single-shot uber-tier shotgun, and basically turns into a semi-automatic.
 * This trick actually works on any non-heavy weapon in the game... even the Widow. The key is hitting the melee button once the ejected thermal clip is visible.
 * There was also a button trick that allowed a character as early as level 6 to max out every ability. This was removed by a patch on May 17, 2010.
 * The save file transfer doesn't properly import your handling of Conrad Verner. It defaults to the Renegade response, which has you "shoving a gun" in his face and inadvertently making him go "hardcore". There are hex fixes that allow one to see the ME1 Paragon Flagged start.
 * If certain conditions are met while Charging as a Vanguard, Shepard's shield will shoot through the roof, going from between 150-325 to somewhere close to 4000. It only lasts for a single mission but you could essentially go through the rest of it meleeing things to death; and yes, charging would indeed refill it to max.
 * In Arrival, a sound bug can result in the indoctrinated troops on the asteroid screaming nonstop due to a looping voice file (which plays in nicely with the subject matter, even if it's unintended).
 * Every weapon's firing rate slows down tremendously during Adrenaline Rush... except the DLC Mattock.
 * Could also be a little of Guide Dang It!. On Aria's side quest with the Eclipse cache, standing in just the right place and firing the ML-77 missile launcher allows you to complete the quest with no crates destroyed. The bug - the missile homes in on anything classified as hostile and when one of them hits the mech while fired just outside of the area that triggers the crate destruction, that mech will walk towards you without activating the other mechs. This allows you to essentially bait all the mechs into attacking you one by one, allowing you to ambush them. You can do this to only one mech at a time and must ensure that your squadmates don't blunder into the area that triggers crate destruction.
 * Holy Shit Quotient: Gets taken Up to Eleven. Especially in the loyalty missions.
 * Like You Would Really Do It: Subverted. Shepard dies ten minutes into the game, and is brought back... but can potentially die for real at the end of the game, so, yes, they would really do it. Then subverted again, in that save games where the entire team dies won't carry over to Mass Effect 3.
 * Memetic Badass:
 * Niftu Cal, the biotic god. Fear his great biotic wind!
 * Also, Sir Isaac Newton. THE DEADLIEST SON OF A BITCH IN SPACE!!!
 * Memetic Mutation:
 * "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL".
 * SHEPARD IS PLEASED.
 * "I've had enough of your disingenuous assertions!" *PAWNCH*
 * I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite page on TVtropes.
 * Ah yes, 'Tropers'... The internet subculture allegedly recording recurring story elements seen across a number of fictional genres. We have dismissed this claim.
 * Councillor Valarn can dismiss any claim! He dismisses things out of existence!
 * Shepard removes Tali's mask to reveal...
 * "I should go".
 * Garrus is impressive.
 * Thane is excellent.
 * "Can it wait? I'm in the middle of some calibrations."
 * "WE KNOW GAVORN'S TRICKS! WE LEAVE!"
 * "But the PRIIIIIIIZE."
 * "You humans are all racist!"
 * "I had reach, she had flexibility."
 * "Geth do not intentionally infiltrate."
 * "I AM A BIOTIC GOD!"
 * "Humans are a blight on galactic purity!"
 * "You, sir! You are a blight."
 * "What can you tell me about [x]?"
 * That freakin' dancing turian made me fail an update!!!
 * Most Annoying Sound / Limited Sound Effects:
 * If you've offered celebrity endorsements to every shop on the Citadel: "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel!"
 * "LAUNCHING PROBE!"/"PROBE LAUNCHED!" resource mini game.
 * The music constantly playing while you explore will drive you to madness.
 * So worth it when you get to the solar system and try to probe Uranus.

"Shepard:
 * If you do something to enemies (such as set them on fire), they will let out a scream that goes on for about thirty seconds before they shut up.
 * Assuming control. Shepard, if I must tear you apart, I will. This hurts you. During combat, Boss in Mook Clothing Big Bad Harbinger is painfully able to spray comments about you and your teammates at about the same rate as his weapon.
 * The screams of the VI during the Overlord DLC seems designed to make you jump out of your seat and tear off your headphones. During the trek through the inert geth ship, the designers go out of their way to blurt out the noise at just the right time to scare the crap out of the player—they even lampshade it with a crew log about Halloween.
 * And this time, instead of the enemies using the same lines over and over and over and over, it's your teammates. But they are right, though--gravity is one mean mother.
 * Most Wonderful Sound:
 * The "Mission Accomplished" track. It sounds so...accomplishing.
 * Ironically enough, "assuming control" becomes this when  says it on   loyalty mission.
 * Using Slam is the grinding sound of using biotics couple with bones breaking. Oh yes.
 * The Widow. Boom. Headshot. And you're probably hearing it in slow motion, since if you HAVE it you're either an Infiltrator and get Bullet Time when you look down the sight, or a soldier and using Adrenaline Rush to help conserve ammo.
 * Narm: Jacob's famous "Heavy risk... but the priiize..." line.
 * Narm Charm: All of the Harbinger's combat lines.
 * Paranoia Fuel:
 * See those cameras in Overlord? They track you. Everywhere. (At least you can shoot them.)
 * The ads on the Citadel, which seem to know EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, right down to who your Love Interest is.
 * Player Punch:
 * The destruction of the Normandy. Being reunited with Ashley/Kaidan. Seeing  Seeing what happens   Plenty more. Mass Effect 2 likes this trope.
 * A good chunk of the loyalty missions are also this. You have a really messed up squad.
 * Project Overlord may as well be entitled "Player No-Holds-Barred Beatdown" after you reach the end and find out . Pistol-Whipping the person responsible is the Paragon response.
 * If anyone was actually thinking or hoping they would find all of the abducted colonists alive at the end and be able to save them, they were tragically mistaken.
 * The ending of "Arrival" DLC is an enormous punch in the gut for both player and Shepard.
 * Replacement Scrappy Mechanic: The Mako planet-roving gets replaced with two: The Hammerhead, and planet scanning. Even BioWare admits that, in retrospect, planet scanning was handled poorly in Mass Effect 2. On the official forums at least one BioWare employee has said that "nobody liked" it, and as a result the planet scanning system has been completely overhauled for Mass Effect 3 so that it's less tedious and time-consuming.
 * Rewatch Bonus: Keep an eye out for someone who has assumed direct control when watching the surveillance footage on Freedom's Progress.
 * Ruined FOREVER:
 * When the Play Station 3 port was announced, an epic meltdown unfolded over Bioware releasing Mass Effect on another platform.
 * A small minority of fans felt that Mass Effect 2's faster-paced combat meant that the game was dumbed down to increase it's appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator.
 * Special Effects Failure: Despite being a visually sound game, it does fall into this on a few occasions. Most common are issues with clipping, which, if you tried to list them all, could probably get a whole page all to themselves.
 * During the first conversation with Garrus on the Normandy, Shepard is meant to be leaning on a railing, but ends up leaning on thin air.
 * During the meeting with the Council, Udina's eyes notably clip through his character model when he walks in.
 * When you wake Grunt up and he pins Shepard against the wall, his shoulder armor visibly clips through his upper body, and Grunt's upper arms always clip through his armor.
 * Mordin's eyes often clip through his eyelids, and Miranda's neck tends to clip through her collar.
 * Because there's twelve party members, and they're largely interchangeable during missions, cutscenes often use the same animations for each character. This works fine for the most part, but can get strange if you have Garrus and/or Grunt in your party—their models are noticeably larger than the rest of the characters', meaning that an animation or pose which works for the other ten characters ends up...not working for Garrus or Grunt. For example, bring Garrus on Tali's loyalty mission—during, check the background. Garrus is sitting in the stands...with his arms clipping through his legs.
 * Bringing Zaeed to Garrus' recruitment mission triggers an extra conversation between him and Tarak. At the end, there's a closeup of Tarak's face--with his head clipping through the camera.
 * Tainted by the Preview: The first teaser for the game was met by quite the reaction, as was Jack's reveal.
 * Take That: Tela Vasir, at the cheapness of Vanguards.
 * Tear Jerker: There a couple moments in some of the characters' loyalty missions. But the big one is at the end of the Project Overlord DLC.

David: Archer:"


 * That One Boss:
 * Tela Vasir.
 * In Arrival, the Object Rho battle if you are going for the Last Stand achievement. Luckily, this one's optional; the game will continue even if you fail.
 * That One Level:
 * The disabled Collector ship can be this, especially the first room. The problem is, you hardly ever get anything other than low cover, which Harbinger excels at knocking you out of, which results in you getting cut apart by Collectors and Scions unless you get back in immediately. It doesn't help that the Illusive Man forces you onto it, and that he's leading you into a trap because you're taking too long.
 * Horizon. Horizon. Horizon. Horizon. If you pick the wrong team or class it may be easier to just begin the game from scratch.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In the first game, it was revealed that Cerberus was behind the Thresher Maws that killed a Sole Survivor Shepard's squad. Shepard works with Cerberus in this game, but is never given a chance to call anyone in Cerberus out for the events on Akuze or the background-specific sidequest from the first game (in which it's revealed that there was another survivor, Corporal Toombs, who was captured and used as a test subject by Cerberus scientists). All you get is a very angry email from Toombs calling Shepard out for working with Cerberus, much like everyone else in the game.
 * Uncanny Valley:
 * A lot of the faces just don't look quite right. Miranda's potato-shaped face (i.e., she does not look like she does on the game box) is probably the most noticeable one. The Unreal Engine 3's age is starting to show with its inability to handle flowing water without significant modification; PC Gamer's review wondered why the characters cried "oil slicks." Dr. Chakwas's face is particularly frightening in the brief moment when she swivels in her chair to face you before a conversation.
 * Shepard himself. (It's not much better if Shepard is female.)
 * The Illusive Man may be this deliberately. According to one dev diary, they deliberately made him perfectly symmetrical. Combine that with the normal mapping on his skin, and he's deep in the valley.
 * Jacob has big teeth. VERY big teeth. Not fangs, just big big teeth. And the way his mouth moves accentuates exactly how big they are. In certain lights they look as though made of silver or chrome too, which we can only hope wasn't intentional.
 * Morinth and Samara, despite being modelled on the same woman, have different animations. Samara looks a lot more normal than Morinth and her creepy square teeth and her creepy smile. Considering who Morinth is, this may very well be intentional.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Political?:
 * C-Sec has instituted new security and travel rules, including seemingly random no-fly lists and item confiscations, as a knee-jerk reaction to a massive attack. They're so ineffective they label a pair of asari as geth infiltrators and fail to notice Anyone familiar with post-9/11 airport security in the US will recognize the system and the common criticisms of it.
 * Also, a great deal of the background dialogue in the planet of Illium appears to be an elaborate satire of extreme anarcho-capitalist political beliefs.

Squadmates
Kasumi Goto


 * Les Yay: A tiny hint in the intro to her loyalty mission. When commenting on how great female Shepard looks in her Little Black Dress, the camera angle makes it seem that Kasumi is staring straight at her boobs. Being Shepard, who wouldn't?

Jack


 * Base Breaker: Whilst possessing her share of fans, many dislike Jack for her overly-brazen tomboyishness. Some guys like that, though...
 * Even during a romance she is nasty and abrasive.
 * And then there are the people who have no problem with overly-brazen tomboyishness, but are extremely put off by her psychopathic, misanthropic, and generally Ax Crazy tendencies. Although that might have been okay, if she was at least somewhat personable about it.
 * Fan Nickname: SuZe was her nickname before people knew it was "Jack". Short for "Subject Zero". It's fallen out of use now, probably because hardly anyone in the game calls her "Subject Zero."
 * Jerkass Woobie: As revealed by her loyalty mission,
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: See Jerkass Woobie above. Even after she gets some closure via her loyalty mission, she admits that she "still kinda want[s] to kill everyone [she] meet[s]. No offence."

Jacob Taylor
 * Angst? What Angst?: The strongest complaint fans have is that he is "boring." Even after his loyalty mission where Shepard and company find out that, he merely shrugs it off (and becomes offended if Shepard insists that he should express anything otherwise). This becomes fridge brilliance when Shepard gains access to the   dossiers and finds Jacob was placed on the team because he's a "stabilising element." He's supposed to be this way, and with good reason, considering how screwed up the rest of Shepard's squaddies are.
 * Base Breaker: Jacob is The Scrappy to many a fan, for various reasons:
 * His criticism of Thane (and lack of similar scenes with the more obviously objectionable team-mates) in his boarding scene and his suggestion to space Legion rather than re-activate it have drawn ire from fans
 * His stoic demeanor, disposition and low-level development makes him come off as one without much of a personality.
 * His romance path often invokes Stop Being Stereotypical (Sneaking into the Captain's Quarters). It also gives off vibes of being rather forced, by comparison to the other romances.
 * In the third game, he cheats on Shepard with Brynn Cole, admitting that he wasn't sure if he'd ever see Shepard again, even though it'd only been six months and Shepard didn't die this time.
 * Memetic Molester: Jacob wants his prize.
 * Memetic Mutation: Heavy risk... But the PRIIIIIZE.
 * Narm Charm: His romance path is not known for being especially well-written, though it did provide a nice meme.
 * Tier-Induced Scrappy: He is by far the weakest character in the game. His skills are Pull (an okay move, but useless against enemies with barriers), Incendiary Ammo (okay ammo power, but weak compared to others like Warp Ammo and Armor Piercing Ammo and redundant considering that Grunt and Shepard may also have it), and Barrier. His weapon selection could be worse, but he'd have to be able to use heavy weapons, which no one but Shepard can do, in order to make up for his shortcomings.
 * What really screws him up is Barrier because the AI keeps auto-casting that for no reason. He is actually a pretty well-balanced character who is good at crowd-control thanks to Pull and Inferno Ammo and won't die as often as most of the other characters thanks to his high HP.
 * The Barrier problem is negated if you have the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, as you can redistribute his talent points entirely and simply choose not to spend the leftover point on Barrier.

Miranda Lawson


 * Base Breaker: Quite possibly one of the biggest examples in the entire trilogy. Most fans either love Miranda or absolutely loathe her. Its hard to find a fan who has a neutral opinion of her. Some find her hot, others find her blatant status as Fanservice (complete with many a shot of her ass) annoying. Some feel sorry for her, others think she's whiny and arrogant. And then there are some who don't like her for her loyalty to Cerberus
 * Canon Sue: BioWare uses Miranda to explore the entire concept of the perfect human. She's unbelievably gorgeous, brilliant and skilled. She is those things because her father, an egotistical prick, designed her that way in a lab. Miranda is tortured by all of those gifts, seeing in them constant evidence of her father's influence.
 * Jerkass Woobie
 * Memetic Mutation: DAT ASS.
 * Uncanny Valley: Her face looks a little...off at times. Fridge Brilliance comes in when it's meant to be perfect, thus looks a little off.
 * Wangst: The main reason she's reviled by certain fans. It's not that she doesn't have a reason to be upset, it's because she drones on and on about how much it hurts her to be perfect and how her father was emotionally distant, especially during a romance, whereas every other character besides Jack has much bigger problems that they don't complain about. The fact that she says that she was always given what she wanted and grew up in wealth has not helped matters.

Mordin


 * Ear Worm: Singing Mordin.

Samara


 * Iron Woobie
 * Ron the Death Eater: A lot of Morinth sympathizers blame Samara for Morinth's addictions.

Thane Krios


 * Stoic Woobie
 * Too Cool to Live

Zaeed Massani


 * Base Breaker: Some fans think Zaeed is a total badass. Others view him as a stereotypical Bounty Hunter, a cheap knock-off of Canderous Ordo, or yet another generic guy. There are also some people who just dislike him for being a bastard.
 * Cargo Ship: This video ships Zaeed with his rifle, Jessie.
 * Memetic Mutation: Zaeed once went out to dinner with his family. He was the only survivor.
 * Moral Event Horizon:

Secret Characters SPOILERS
Legion

"Legion: The geth believe all intelligent life must self-determinate."
 * Ugly Cute
 * Values Dissonance: A lot of Legion's dialogue involves it explaining how the geth operate in terms both Shepard and the player can understand. During its loyalty quest, Legion will agree with Renegade Shepard's point that organic and synthetic moral values are fundamentally different when the other teammate questions the moral ramifications of rewriting the programming of the heretics, explaining that organics are individuals and that consensus takes time and effort whereas there are no individuals among synthetics and that communication between them is instantaneous. Legion will even go as far as saying that it would be racist to think otherwise.
 * While there are a lot of differences between the geth and organic life, it is still possible to find common ground. The following quote can be Values Resonance for a lot of people:

Morinth


 * Alas, Poor Villain: After killing her, Samara quietly despairs about how she's forced to kill her most talented daughter.
 * Complete Monster
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Some of the fanbase consider her actions to be completely the fault of her genetics, which are in turn Samara's fault, and thus Samara's the monster for hunting down a serial murderer who kills solely for her own benefit. In spite of the fact Samara's other daughters have the same genetic disorder, neither of them went on a killing spree, Morinth never shows so much as a single redeeming feature or hint of remorse and her argument for Shepard saving her is that she is already as powerful as her mother, so she would be a more powerful ally. She will kill Shepard if she is given the opportunity - hell, that's how you recruit her, by offering yourself as bait. As awful as her early life must have been, she's spent the subsequent four hundred years burning out the brains of innocent victims to boost her own power for fun.
 * Evil Is Sexy: As per the vampirism parallel. Also, asari.
 * Magnificent Bitch: Samara considers her as such, calling her "The bravest and smartest of [her] daughters."
 * Memetic Molester

NPCs
Quarian Admirals


 * Never Live It Down: The name of Zaal'Koris's ship, the Qwib Qwib, so named because it's a repurposed ship that was originally non-Quarian and the Quarians are unable to format the ship's registration documentation. Tali warns Shepard not to ask about the name, but Shepard can inquire anyway.
 * The ensuing dialogue implies that there are Quarians toting names that end in vas Defrahnz or vas Iktomi, completely unaware of what they sound like to humans.

The Illusive Man


 * Internet Backdraft: Pretty much any topic about the Illusive Man will eventually devolve to whether he's a Necessary Evil or a Complete Monster.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Until the final major choice of the game, everything that happens in the story is driven by the Illusive Man.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Until the final major choice of the game, everything that happens in the story is driven by the Illusive Man.

Kal'Reegar


 * Ensemble Darkhorse: To the degree that people want him back in ME3 as a squadmate.
 * Most people wanted him as a squaddie as early as in ME2 after seeing him for the first time in one of the pre-release trailers.

Kelly Chambers


 * Base Breaker: Yet another polarizing character, due to her "psychological assessments" being generic with no real insight, her apologist attitude, and her memetic status as a complete slut. On the other end of the spectrum, some people like her sweetness and her status as Cerberus' Token Good Teammate
 * Player Punch:
 * Poison Oak Epileptic Trees: So, how did the Varren scale-itch get on board? Do you really want to know?
 * Yes we do. In graphic detail.

Aria T'Loak


 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Large Ham. Memetic Precision F-Strike. Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Fetish Fuel Station Attendant. Badass. Worthy Opponent to one of the most popular characters in the fandom (probably). Her popularity far overshadows her screen time.
 * Epileptic Trees: There are more than a few involving her, one being that she's acquainted with Wrex,
 * Evil Is Sexy: Okay, Aria may not be straight-up evil, but she is a crime lord, and she's sexy even for an asari.
 * Memetic Mutation: Once more: "Don't fuck with Aria."
 * But Thou Must!: Shepard defeats entire species, and depending on playstyle can mock and/or shoot in the face just about anyone in the galaxy who so much as annoys him/her... except for one lousy crime boss with three measly bodyguards, who gets to insult you to your face with impunity. Even if you have the details of a plot to overthrow her, and have gone around the galaxy getting information which could be used against her, you can. Not. Do. Anything. Ever. What the hell?
 * Aria is useful and cooperates with Shepard at every turn and never tries anything against him/her.

Urz


 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Quite a few players have expressed the desire to take Urz back to the Normandy with them after watching him follow Shepard adoringly around Tuchanka.
 * Ugly Cute: Just look at that face.
 * Good varren.

Matriarch Aethyta


 * Ensemble Darkhorse: She's at least as popular as some of Shepard's squad thanks to her combination of being a Cool Old Lady and Deadpan Snarker.
 * Epileptic Trees: Some believe she's Liara's father. Yep, father, with asari being one sex and all.
 * The game itself seems to heavily imply this, as one of the videos Shepard can watch  is footage of Aethyta sitting at home alone, drinking, and staring at a holograph of (what is almost undeniably) Liara.

Harbinger


 * Crack Ship: It's mostly a joke, but Harbinger/Shepard, drawing upon such lines as "I KNOW YOU FEEL THIS," is oddly popular.
 * Fountain of Memes: "Assuming direct control! This hurts you. If I must tear you apart, Shepard, I will. We are Harbinger. Direct intervention is necessary." And so on and so forth.
 * Memetic MuASSUMING CONTROL

The Collector General


 * Alas, Poor Villain
 * The Woobie:

Gavin Archer


 * Moral Event Horizon:

Tela Vasir


 * Best Boss Ever: Vasir is an asari Spectre. An asari Spectre Vanguard. Especially awesome if your Shepard is also a Vanguard.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: The reason she works for the Shadow Broker is Not So Different from why Shepard works for Cerberus. She has no choice, because the Council gives SPECTREs squat. The Commander would be going nowhere fast without the intelligence and funds Cerberus provide, funds that always match or better what credits you can scrounge. She has much less to work with.
 * While her situation is understandable, she takes way more enjoyment in what she does than she needs to. She has a worringly sadistic grin when threatening her hostage, her troops shot down civilians who were wounded, and she killed a lot of security guards at the hotel, even though she could have gotten them on her side by pointing out she was a Spectre. Her racism against Purebloods also makes her motivation for targeting Liara very suspect.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: For such a short amount of screen-time, she's quite a popular character. Possibly due to an awesome boss fight, her being a total Badass, and a remarkable Shut Up, Kirk speech.

Overlord


 * Hell Is That Noise: QWEEGHPRRZZMZZKKKSKKKTTTPPP!
 * Not only is it a horrific sound in itself, but the volume for it is incredibly loud. At a normal volume, on a normal TV, the scream is downright earsplitting. If you're wearing headphones or have a surround sound system, it'll blast your brain out of your skull.
 * Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant
 * The Woobie/Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:

Kaidan/Ashley


 * Alternative Character Interpretation: Were they ungrateful and paranoid about Shepard, or was their reaction a natural one to their former commander (and possible lover) coming back into their life after two years of being dead as part of a terrorist organization?
 * The Scrappy: Quite a few people hate them for their reaction on Horizon, even if they did not in Mass Effect 1.