Collider wrote...
We were discussing the pros and cons of the writing of the various Mass Effect alien races. I maintain that the Asari race was not very compelling for me.
The asari race was never really compelling for me for some of the reasons the discussion has outlined, the main reason they even exist is because they add sex appeal. (This was blatantly stated by one of the artists at one point, which also said that some of the female workers at BioWare complained about this "So, while you get a bunch of hot women, simply painted blue, we get a scaled bird-reptile thing? (Garrus)", hence, Thane was born)
And even then, they were hardly interesting beyond that in ME1, in ME2 we get to see some of the different reaches of their culture, that go beyond "we luv having teh sexeh tiem and we be teh immortalz", such as Justicars, Adrat-Yakshi, the stigma on "pure bloods" and, well, Matriarch Aethyta.