I collected a bunch of data based on people's comments on heavy weapons, thought I'd share it. This data is rough and generalized. It doesn't mean we'll be making any of the below changes for ME3 (but we might).
 

 
I collected a bunch of data based on people's comments on heavy weapons, thought I'd share it. This data is rough and generalized. It doesn't mean we'll be making any of the below changes for ME3 (but we might).
 

Personally, I barely ever used any of the  except for the laser thing on the last boss.

I'd of loved to take this questionnaire =O Heavy weapons differed for me, anywhoo. I would save them for bosses mostly but when that Arc Projector was released I'd just use it to get through certain fire fights quicker because of how awesomely overpowered it is.

I usually save heavy weapons for bosses, or otherwise large gunfights.

I AM HEAVY WEAPONS GI AND DIS IS MI WEAPN.
 

I used heavy weapons on groups of enemies as they took them out faster then picking them off one by one.

...in RE4 I bought a rocket just for boss battles...so that chart is not off.  :\

The only heavy weapon I ever bothered using was Collector Particle Beam. Used it on tougher enemies when I was low on ammo and bosses.

I used the laser whenever Harbinger manifested himself. Usually just used the rest of the ammo on the remaining grunts.
 
And, going along with the third most common response, I would love if the ammo replenished itself between missions. I was disappointed when I found out that this didn't automatically happen.

That's looks about right. On my Insanity playthrough (work in progress), I've been saving it for heavy mechs and other sub-bosses and bosses. I did the same thing on lower difficulties, but on Insanity, you don't want to not have the ammo when you need it.

If I'm not mistaken Christina, you were 'only' a programmer on ME 1 right? And later became Gameplay Designer for Mass Effect 3?
The iteration Mass Effect 1 -> Mass Effect 2 is massive, so I'm interested in seeing what you'll pull out of your sleeve! Even minor changes could turn out to be a huge improvement.

The Arc Projector has saved my bacon in many a geth fight on Insanity.  The Collector Laser is much less effective on this difficulty, so I save it for organics.
I'm curious what will force me to bring out the Cain.  Probably Garrus' loyalty mission.

I only used the Collector Beam cause it was seriously the best. Cain was just too wasteful.
 
And yea, more ammo would've been nice.
 
Keep up the great work, it'll be a crime if ME2 doesn't win all the GOTY awards when 2011 slinks around.

Started playing through on Insanity - having to use heavy weapons a lot more.  I'm so used to getting through the main level without using up my ammo but now, I'm having to rely on the big guns much more.  The collector beam also is much less impressive on Insanity - the arc projector still pulls through though (love it when it blows up the pyros)

 I think that grenades should be back in ME3. It could work that way: you take grenade, time "stops" and you aim (a line shows where grenade will land), then you just watch an explosion (a real one, not like ones in ME1).
 
BTW, there should be also more ammo for heavy weapons. I personally rarely use any heavy weapon. They're just not as powerful as they could be and there's not much ammo.

I'd love to work at Bioware someday, hope to meet you in a few years.

I used heavy weapons to kill bosses, occasionally to frag a mob of enemies if the opportunity presented itself.
 
My favorite instance was killing the end boss with the  M-920 Cain...

Generally ignored the heavy weapons due to sparse ammo and sometimes meager effects. Though that one time I used the Cain to nuke a reactor core was pretty cool :D. 

in most games i like using the smallest, fastest and most precise weapons over raw power. A lot of the time thats a pistol.

I usually save my special weapons for boss battles, however, with the Arc Projector, seeing as it really is not that good against bosses, I use it when I'm getting swarmed. Having the power of lightning at your fingertips is awesome.
 
I also will not forget, on my first playthrough getting the finishing blow on the final boss with the Cain.

I didn't really use them because I knew getting ammo back would be hard. I wish there was an ammo and medigel refill device on the ship. 

" @NoXious:  Yep I was only a programmer, but I was the lead programmer for our conversation and cinematics systems, so not a bad gig! "

I only used them to try them out oyher than that I hardly ever used them

I think the reason I didn't use the HW's that much is because I had to SWITCH to a heavy weapon, use it, then switch back, and most of the time it just wasn't worth the 10 seconds of vulnerability that entails when I have a million other abilities I can use instead.  Not only that but usually it's not a good idea to use a heavy weapon unless you have a certain distance between you and the enemy anyways.  Unfortunately most of the time it's a better idea to just use a heavy pistol or some other weapon if you have the space to risk switching to HW's on higher difficulties...unless you are totally fucked then it's just a nuke option.   ...I find that I more often just spam my heavy weapon until it's out of ammo and then forget about it for a few missions.
 
 
I never felt like I got anything other than "personal style points" from switching to a heavy weapon.  In ME1 I could pop a grenade on reaction and it added alot to my effectiveness.  I didn't have to stop and equip a grenade to use it, I just hit a button and threw the grenade and then Geth blew up infront of me.  The grenades had a level of versatility that the Heavy Weapons (while cooler to use) just don't really have.  If the "change equipment, change back" steps were removed from heavy weapons, it might add alot of opportunities to use and enjoy them that we just don't have in Mass Effect 2. 
 

Also this is a little bit of a "use my idea plz!!" line here, but I always felt like also attaching heavy weapons to the vehicles would be kinda cool.  Like what if the Hammerhead or the Mako could just switch between any of the HW's you have (We have 8 so far right?).  Pop some missiles and freeze a larger enemy; use arc projector to drain their shields then finish them off with a blackstorm.   Combo's like that might reflect alot of what makes the regular combat so interesting into the vehicle bits.

One thing I forgot to mention in your first post was that since I rarely used Heavy Weapons it got really annoying when I would switch back to my main weapon, if I ran out of ammo or whatever I'd forget I'd recently used the Heavy and do a quick switch, expecting my pistol, only to have myself slowly pull out a heavy weapon, which was usually empty. 
 
Assuming I survived that, I'd then have to follow up with juggling my weapons around so I had the right one out and the one I want ready for quick switching,    

I'll just throw it out there and say I could not stop hoarding my heavy weapons ammo (same goes for medigel).  Rationally I knew that I'd find more; but the fact that I couldn't resupply at will kicked my subconscious into hoard mode and I hardly ever used my heavy weapons, which is a shame cause they're a lot of fun to use.
 
For ME3 or future ME2 DLC, I'd really appreciate a way to resupply my power cells and medigel between missions simply as a means to combat my natural proclivity to hoard.

I AM HEAVY WEAPONS GI AND DIS IS MI WEAPN.
 

My renegade femshep looks like Mr(s). Freeze, so I find myself constantly using the Avalanche heavy weapon. Unlike all the other HW's, it's not so good for big mechs and the like. It is, however, really fun and effective to use on groups of normal enemies.

I don't understand the hoarding mentality with special weapons though. Use it or lose it.

I thought they were pretty pointless.
 
The arc projector had its uses on insanity with large groups, but mostly, meh, coulda done without em, ammo was too scarce and they felt too slow and sluggish (yes, heavy weapon, but god, why drag it along for the off chance you meet a giant reaper human skeleton terminator thing right?).

Usually used the collector laser and saved it for bosses or minibosses. In Lair of the Shadow Broker on Insanity though I had to use the Arc Projector on the waves of enemies coming in by flying truck.

My main problem with heavy weapons was how long it took them to get off your back. I don't mind the limited ammo, but how slow they were to load up really made me feel like they weren't an 'on-the-fly' option. When in trouble in a firefight and caught with the wrong weapon or no ammo, I would switch to my other weapon before my heavy weapon only so I could get more damage downrange faster. What this means is that throughout the game, I have way more experience with my regular weapons than my heavy weapons, so I don't necessarily trust my abilities with them in an emergency. If I'm rarely using my heavy weapon, then I don't feel comfortable relying on it over my trusted formulas.

If I were to throw a suggestion, it would be to make the heavy weapon more accessible than a regular weapon, and have their power be a recharge rather than an exploration thing. Then again, I guess that makes it a bit too close to regular powers. The idea is to create something the player can use without feeling like they've hampered themselves later, because if they never use it in 'regular' situations, they lack the experience to handle it reliably in 'emergency' situations.

Yeah definitely agree with this poll, most heavy weapon I used was the Cain on Bosses. I thought at first I would  try to use a new heavy weapons every mission but since ammo was sparse I just stuck to one kind of Heavy Weapon, the one I knew could get the job done.