Actually, while I'm on the subject of Bioware games, I guess I should mention that I've finally played Mass Effect.  I'd been holding off a while, but the entire chapter dedicated to it in Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell piqued my curiosity.
 
Going in, I thought it was going to be Bioware basically carrying on the Star Wars: KoToR franchise without the actual Star Wars brand attached, but aside from a lot of similar aesthetic trappings (which can't really be helped, considering the genre juggernaut that Star Wars is), Bioware managed to craft a pretty decent setting for themselves.
 
The combat and planet-based sidequests were pretty lame, but the actual writing and Shepard conversations were pretty awesome. I was extremely pleased with being able to goad Saren into killing himself during the final showdown, even if it did somehow count as a Renegade action. In fact, the only real problem I had with the writing and plot side was the fact that Paragon and Renegade decisions didn't really take into account the context of the action. In real life, while badgering someone to kill himself is definitely not very nice, if the alternative is letting that guy kill hundreds of millions of people, does it really make a person History's Greatest Monster for doing so? 
 
If not that, then I guess letting Kaidan die because I felt he was getting too clingy is pretty close.