Alistair becoming King, and her ruling at his side.

Returning to the circle to help them out.

Collectors Ship.

got Tali killed on the suicide mission because a seasoned veteran has no idea how to provide cover fire.

Sided with the mages. Meredith can expletive off.

Siding with Templars. Orsino can expletive off too.

She romanced Kaidan, left Ashley on Virmire, let Wrex live, convinced Garrus to stay in C-sec, helped Tali by getting her Geth data, got Wrex's family armor, and she also let the Rachni queen live.

she stayed faithful to Kaidan, resolved both conflicts between Jack/Miranda and Tali/Legion, did everyone's loyalty missions and everyone survived, and destroyed the collector base at the end.

Paragon choices mostly. Chose good ending to blow up Collector base but Jack didn't survive. Romanced Tali but still got her exiled from the fleet.

Renegade choices mostly. First playthrough I managed to get the no one left behind achievement on insanity... that was difficult.

Second playthrough, renegade choices again. And I purposely tried to get most of the cast killed. Only Miranda (loyal), Jacob (loyal) and Samara (I purposely failed her loyalty mission) survived. I have no idea how Samara managed to pull through. Sold Legion to Cerberus. No romance. Chose bad ending to let Cerberus take the Collector base. I did all this to see what'll be like to play ME3 with these odd choices. Especially since Tali, Garrus, Legion, Mordin have all been confirmed and shown in the game - but with this playthrough they won't be there. I wonder what'll happen :)

Even more in this playthrough, Grunt is dead and by default so is Wrex. So without them I wonder what'll happen to the Krogan in ME3

Alistair and my Cousland went off to be Gray Wardens, giving Anora the throne.

If i had to understand the ire of fans, I'm guessing they didn't like the fact that the ending changes so much, no matter what you choose. Just to recap, some of the biggest changes would be..

-destroying all Reapers and synthetics, including Geth and EDI. This leaves the possibility that synthetic life will be created again to repeat a history of conflict
- control/spare the Reapers and save the Earth, which also spares the Citidel from destruction.
- initiate the synthesis, which creates new synthetic-organic life across all existing life in the galaxy. The Reapers abandon their campaign, Earth is saved as well as all life. (I choose this ending)

In nearly every ending Shepard dies, sacrificing himself. If you choose to destroy the reapers, you'll need a high enough readiness for an extra scene where he awakens in rubble, surviving the event. In every ending, except the "destroying reapers" ending, the citadel is destroyed. In every ending all the mass relays and mass effect tech seems to be destroyed. This leaves all species unable to travel the galaxy as they once did.

So wow, these variables give way to a future that will have some drastic changes, but that's good. I guess fans were expecting to retire on a tropical beach like Garrus said. Maybe revisit the Citadel or have a drink at Afterlife on Omega, and live out the rest of Shepard's elderly years in peace. But that would be conventional, I'd expect that ending. In fact I expect that ending in every game and summer blockbuster movie. The endings they provided I would have never predicted and can't rightfully predict what exactly it means for the literal future of the story.

In either case the story ends the current ME arch completely. The old galaxy fans have come to know now only exist in the previous installments. The choices they've made will really shape whatever future lies ahead.

The final scene was a nice touch I thought. It ends in the same fashion it started, with a legend. The legend of the Reapers turned out to be true and changed the fate of the galaxy. The two characters at the end speak of a new legend in their time: The Shepard. To them it's just a tale but one day they may discover the adventurous truth that inspired it.

Now I have not beaten it on a second playthrough/new game + but supposedly there's more to the endings if you do. Or I'm reading the "secret ending" is the final scene mentioned above. Not sure.

Joker was fighting in the Normandy over earth? How the heck did he get far away enough to evade a mass relay explosion? Where did my teammates go when Harbinger was shooting at me? Why did they somehow teleport on to the Normandy after crash landing on some random planet? Since the mass relays got destroyed, shouldn't most (heck, all) of the solar systems be destroyed (anyone remember the end of the Arrival DLC)? WHY THE HELL DO REAPERS KILL LIFE TO PROTECT THEM FROM SYNTHETICS WHEN THEY THEMSELVES ARE SYNTHETICS? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE? WHERE ARE MY HALF-CANADIAN KAIDAN CHILDREN?