I'm not so sure about that. Most RPG games races popularity goes from most human looking to less human looking (minus in Asia where cute and fury is the most popular).
Then why are dranei and orcs more popular than dwarves and gnomes in WoW?
I wonder about ME though. I'd like to see the romance distribution for the female characters (Ashley, Liara, Miranda, Jack, and Tali) and male characters (Kaidan, Jacob, Garrus, and Thane) for their first games. It's a bit different because we knew Tali and Garrus for a whole game before they became available, but I'd still like to see what the breakdown looked like.
You're confusing who you want to be with who you want to bang.
Krogan were popular in ME 3 MP, but I'm going to guess the average player found asari far more attractive.