Well, I started playing, imported my character that I've had since ME1. I was using the default male Shepard, so didn't have any issues with the import, and came in at level 31. After tooling around a bit getting control of the Normandy, I go to start up a mission, enter my skill page, and see I'm back at level 1! All of my other party members are in their 30's, but my Shepard was reset.

Since I hadn't been manually saving diligently, I'm out about 4 hours of play. I'm really interested to see what all of the ending controversy is about, so I'll come back, but will wait until they patch this bad boy.

I also went to post this on the ME3 support forums. It seems I am not the first one who hit this bug. I try to add my story, but to add insult to injury I see, "You do not meet the requirements to post in this forum. Please see the FAQ for more details." The things I'm seeing on the faq are "New accounts on the BioWare Social Network can post after 24 hours from the time of their account creation." and "Some forums have an additional requirement that people who wish to post to have played a BioWare/Electronic Arts game while logged into your Origin account. Some forums also require game registration to post. Please see forum description for full requirements."

I have a retail copy of the game from Amazon, activated through the Origin client, and my account's signup date was in 2010. What the hell happened to Bioware? How can their flagship product be so messed up?

Cause money.

Rushed product. 

Indeed, a rushed product for money. I don't know if the blame goes to EA or Bioware, but I'd say both. Bioware may have got my money this time, but they shouldn't count on it again anytime soon.

I had the same problem, but I had saves I could reload. Even after reloading saves the glitch would recurr over and over. To the point were I completed the game at around level 9.

I blame EA more than Bioware. Bioware was beautiful before EA came into the picture.