I think Phelps dying came out of nowhere, if I'm honest. I mean it seems to be a trend in video games nowadays to make the main character die, but I just don't see why he was killed. There was no reason for it, really.   
 
Other than that, I liked the ending. I think the eulogy was one big middle finger to everything Phelps had tried to do during the game, and all his effort had been, mostly, for naught, and odd as it may sound, I think I consider that a good thing. Not for the universe but for the story, I mean. It's a great story of the little guy going against all the corrupt powers that be and ultimately losing to them. 
 
So, in conclusion, mixed feelings... I liked it more than I disliked it, I just wish the death didn't feel so forced.

To the OP, thats not what I just saw. At all. Phelps wanted the spun guy alive, but Jack won the arguement, terminated because the river was rising and Elsa needed out. Phelps was going to get screwed again, anyways. And Kelso is the way everyone wishes they and things to be, including having his very own private force to fight with him. Phelps was troubled and really didn't have friends except for the cops who, Biggs especially, ended up respecting him despite his climb up the ladder. And Elsa. It's easy to like Kelso, and misses the point of the story if you write off Phelps. He saved both Elsa and Jack in the end, and paid the Piper for his sins...

The ending to L.A Noire was awful. It was so disconnected from the rest of the game. Cole dying didn't even make sense and there was no closure at all to the story. Like, there was nothing redeeming about the ending. There was no "FUCK YEAH! EAT IT ASSHOLE!!". It was just "omg it wus somewun from there oun yuunit!" "Oh and now Cole is dead". Wait, what?

Like, seriously? What even happened? The ending completely ruined the game for me. The fact that absolutely nothing gets tied up at the end other than Cole being dead just ruined it. I'm not going to watch a Michael Bay movie if I know nothing is going to get blown up.

I didn't mind the ending of the L.A. Noire and understand how it operated within the genre. However, a few things:

- Phelps's death didn't have much of an impact on me because of the focus on Kelso at the end of the game. I understood Phelp's attempt at redemption, but it felt too quick and underdeveloped.

- There should have been more depth to Phelps's relationship to his family and Elsa to give more explanation to his infidelity. However, it was surprising and the character left a bad taste in my mouth.

- Playing Kelso was great and offered a nice contrast to Phelps, though the overabundance of underwhelming gun-play in the end felt rushed.

- I understand why Roy didn't get a bullet to the head, but damn. If only...

- What was with the cutscene after the credits? It was a great scene, but why feature it there?

I do have one question: In the cutscene where Phelps orders the torching of the cave/Japanese hospital, was it Courtney Sheldon who shot Phelps? If so, I take it Phelps didn't see him do it?

LA Noire was never about the corruption or the real estate scam. It was never about finding the crooks and bringing down the wrath of Justice on them. It was about Cole seeking peace for his post-war guilty conscience. If you think Cole dying in a sewer drain saving the lives of a friend he betrayed and a woman he found peace with is pointless, then I can only imagine how vapid your taste in storytelling must be. Tex being the firebug, Cole being the reason Tex snapped, and how it all tied into the man Cole was during the war and the man he became post-war was pointless to you? Or is it just because you're butthurt Cole couldn't make a ten foot jump in waist deep water Shaquille O'Niel would have trouble with?  People here are either dumb, don't know the first thing about the Noir genre, or they just really, really dislike endings that don't tie everything into a pretty bow and leave the heroes smiling while they enjoy some apple pie and wave an American flag.  Cole was a hero, in the end. He was seeking redemption and justification for his Silver Star. He found it. The bad guys got away (most of them, anyhow) and Elsa lost the one man who could bring her out of her downward spiral, but Cole's personal story saw the closure it needed. That's how noir tales go. The hero may not defeat the villain, but they most definitely find what they were looking for the entire tale.

@Dookysharpgun said:

@KingWilly: I'm not debating the genre, I'm just saying that given the five year dev cycle, you think they'd come up with a better way to kill the main character, other than having him swept away in a sewer. It seems lazy,  and the screw you idea surrounds the concept of ending the game on a pointless note. The genre is fine, but how you end a game set around that genre can say a lot about the developers who made it. It was a lazy ending, one that was just set out of opportunity, instead of an actual script orientated end that would have been more relevant to the story. Have Phelps die right before he can expose all those involved...that would have been a great end. But a sewer full of poo-water? Please...
 
I can right in Italics too, it proves nothing. And don't call me son.

You are so wrong it must hurt. 

 
LA Noire was never about the corruption or the real estate scam. It was never about finding the crooks and bringing down the wrath of Justice on them. It was about Cole seeking peace for his post-war guilty conscience. If you think Cole dying in a sewer drain saving the lives of a friend he betrayed and a woman he found peace with is pointless, then I can only imagine how vapid your taste in storytelling must be. Tex being the firebug, Cole being the reason Tex snapped, and how it all tied into the man Cole was during the war and the man he became post-war was pointless to you? Or is it just because you're butthurt Cole couldn't make a ten foot jump in waist deep water Shaquille O'Niel would have trouble with?  People here are either dumb, don't know the first thing about the Noir genre, or they just really, really dislike endings that don't tie everything into a pretty bow and leave the heroes smiling while they enjoy some apple pie and wave an American flag.  Cole was a hero, in the end. He was seeking redemption and justification for his Silver Star. He found it. The bad guys got away (most of them, anyhow) and Elsa lost the one man who could bring her out of her downward spiral, but Cole's personal story saw the closure it needed. That's how noir tales go. The hero may not defeat the villain, but they most definitely find what they were looking for the entire tale.

 
It was a quite weird ending. I felt more bad for Phelps than disappointed after what he did with his family and his career, but in the end he showed that he would do anything to save the ones he cares about, even giving his life for it.

@Dookysharpgun said:

@KingWilly: I'm not debating the genre, I'm just saying that given the five year dev cycle, you think they'd come up with a better way to kill the main character, other than having him swept away in a sewer. It seems lazy,  and the screw you idea surrounds the concept of ending the game on a pointless note. The genre is fine, but how you end a game set around that genre can say a lot about the developers who made it. It was a lazy ending, one that was just set out of opportunity, instead of an actual script orientated end that would have been more relevant to the story. Have Phelps die right before he can expose all those involved...that would have been a great end. But a sewer full of poo-water? Please...
 
I can right in Italics too, it proves nothing. And don't call me son.

You are so wrong it must hurt. 

 
LA Noire was never about the corruption or the real estate scam. It was never about finding the crooks and bringing down the wrath of Justice on them. It was about Cole seeking peace for his post-war guilty conscience. If you think Cole dying in a sewer drain saving the lives of a friend he betrayed and a woman he found peace with is pointless, then I can only imagine how vapid your taste in storytelling must be. Tex being the firebug, Cole being the reason Tex snapped, and how it all tied into the man Cole was during the war and the man he became post-war was pointless to you? Or is it just because you're butthurt Cole couldn't make a ten foot jump in waist deep water Shaquille O'Niel would have trouble with?  People here are either dumb, don't know the first thing about the Noir genre, or they just really, really dislike endings that don't tie everything into a pretty bow and leave the heroes smiling while they enjoy some apple pie and wave an American flag.  Cole was a hero, in the end. He was seeking redemption and justification for his Silver Star. He found it. The bad guys got away (most of them, anyhow) and Elsa lost the one man who could bring her out of her downward spiral, but Cole's personal story saw the closure it needed. That's how noir tales go. The hero may not defeat the villain, but they most definitely find what they were looking for the entire tale.

Ok, one of the cardinal rules of writing:
 
Don't introduce a new main character in the falling action of a story. Guess what Jack Kelso is?
 
Yeah, Cole's a little shallow, and the whole adultery subplot was wayyy out of left field. But whatever emotional attachment I had to Cole was absolutely eliminated when I played as Kelso for the last two missions.
 
I don't know anything about Kelso. He calls everyone "Princess." He's working from a completely different background. If I hadn't collected any of the newspapers, I would literally know zippo about him. He's an unknown character compared to Cole, who we've at least had the entire game to get to know, even if there's not much there.
 
I think the game should have ended like it did. Good noire-y ending, killing off the main character, the assistant DA selling out. Perfect. 
 
But it would have been so much better if I could have controlled Phelps as he got swept away, like I could with John Marston.
 
Team Bondi spent countless in-game hours getting us to (kind of) like Cole, so why deprive us of him for the last two missions? Did any other writers read the script? What a monumentally stupid idea.

The actual ending felt like the alternate ending for those players who got an average score of three stars or less on all the case files (i.e. The "Bad" ending).

The ending where I don't get to shoot Roy Earle in the eye socket is always going to be the bad ending.

I don't think I can really add anything to the conversation that hasn't already been said but I just finished it, didn't like it.

Rockstar seems to have a thing for endings with the main character not making it out alive, first RDR, then this. That being said, it wasn't a bad ending, just bittersweet, spend so much time with the character then he dies, heroically, but still dead. It does seem to promote the message that one man can't make a difference, because as hard as Cole fought to make things better, everything was the same after his death, corruption won out.

I've just come from a different thread where I was vehemently defending this game, but I need it to be known that Cole's death was a massive, pointless cop-out. It just would have made so much sense for Ira to die, for Kelso and Cole to get some grudging catharsis, and for Cole and Elsa to drive off LA Confidential-style to an uncertain future (everything else was LA Confidential-style!). Not only is it a stupid way to kill him, but there was no reason to kill him in the first place! Gah.

@Roomrunner said:

Not a whole lot of LA Noire plot points felt like Noir. It was more of a police procedural.

I'd say that everything but the actual casework stuff was about right. Disregarding all the procedural stuff, I think it's interesting that the game is set in 1947, (which, if you take 1941's The Maltese Falcon to be the start of the original Noir cycle, is well into the Noir era), but is so preoccupied with WWII specifically. I've always seen the distrust and instability that Americans were feeling after the war cited as the origin of Noir, and LA Noire kind of addresses that explicitly, as opposed to the indirect way the kind of movies I've seen approach it. I guess that's what makes it really feel different from the kind of Noir movies I've seen. It'd be because the game comes from a point when we've analysed Noir to hell, but it feels different from the neo-noir I've seen too.

I have to say, i guess I benefited by taking breaks between sessions. With game slike MK, MVC3, SFIII, Fallout: NV, Brotherhood,e t.c It felt good having time to slow down and get a few good cases down in Noire and putting it back down. bt I have to say, once I got to Arson, I was in. While the character shift was jarring, made sense at the time, Cole couldn't go any further in his investigation, and it's pretty clear the that whole Arson desk is just one big conspiracy (Which the same could be said about the end of Vice). So it made sense for them to kinda go all in.

As for Cole ding, I knew it was coming (thanks spoiler threads) so it didnt piss me off, but I felt like it worked. When Cole just looked atthem and said "Goodbye" he knew it was a rap, he tried to atone for his sins in the War, and he felt redeemed. And the story doesn't really end neatly... but it just feels jumbled. Which I guess sums up LA Noire for me, fun, but jumbled.

As for the reviewers, if they liked it, then it's their opinions and we can pretty much leave it at that.