SkaldFish wrote...
It also pretty skillfully uses loaded terms -- words and phrases whose semantic content includes quite negative connotations:
"Passionate," for example, is often a Human Resources euphemism for "difficult" or "argumentative" that's used as a code word in official employee reviews. As a manager, I've been instructed to use it on many occasions.
Also, note that the outcry about the ending is presented as a list of emotional responses that "fans needed" as opposed to being objective feedback from dissatisfied consumers. This storngly communicates immaturity, neediness and entitlement. If you think that's a stretch, look back a couple of sentences and note that those who gave positive, glowing feedback are referred to not as "fans" but as "players" who provided "profound words of appreciation."
Finally, they close by saying that comments from these needy, passionate fans "are equally valid," which creates a "we're so magnanimous that we even care for the emotionally needy" subtext intended to increase the reader's sympathy towards the company and underline the already negative portrait of unhappy customers.
Let's be civil but never forget the nature of the conflict or the weapons in BioWare's arsenal.

Ok, you just officially made it to my class tomorrow. It's supposed to be translations class, but we are atm discussing style guides, registries and variations, so this is a wonderful example on those, as well as more general translation issues, such as knowing the background of the source text. If one was to translate the ST that is.
Also, at least one other person in our group plays ME3, or should I say, playED ME3, so this will be well received.