What is your favourite - preferably named - enemy/antagonist? Just curious. 
I think mine has to be Sovereign. Was listening to Sovereign's Theme on the Mass Effect CD and remembered how awesome he was. 
And if there is actually someone who likes Kai Leng:
That is all.
Those Thresher Maws.
Encountering my first Maw was surprising and exciting, to say the least. I still recall circling around it over and over in the Mako.
It's fun to fight them on foot.
I don't think I have a favorite named antagonist. They are either a pain in the ass or weaklings. In the former case they are annoying, in the latter they failed as antagonists Maybe Tela Vasir.
My favorite enemy faction are the Geth. I always liked fighting them, they are challenging enough not to be boring and easy enough not to be annoying
It's fun to fight them on foot.
Yep. tried that, too. Ran around like crazy until I found higher ground. Lol.
The geth consensus, or Geth VI as an avatar of their ideology in a single character.
Edit: The original Council does get an honorable mention for being elitist pr!cks, now that I've been reminded. So easy to forget them since in the first game I speak with them as little as possible then let them get offed as a reward for their lack of vision and foresight.
Tela Vasir was good. And fun to fight. I can't remember whether it was Stasis or Slam I ended up using on her, but it was hilarious.
Sylvan_Moon - Yes. Garrus got owned by the Thresher Maw when I tried it. 
Would have totally changed the outcome of ME2.
The Council. Topped only by The Illusive Man.
I can't really say there were any favourite antagonists. I mean, it was very easy to dislike Saren and the Illusive Man later... but they were all kind of weak. Even Sovereign didn't impress me. For an ancient, powerful AI it made surprisingly many mistakes, dragged out the entire conflict for years and then got shot down by a light Frigate. Pathetic. If it was me in Sovereign's place, I would have initiated the Reaper attacks long before anyone ever heard of Commander Shephard.
The Shadow Broker was almost a good villain, but in the end he couldn't keep calm and that got him killed.
ME3 was even more disappointing once you realized that there wasn't a villain at all. The Leviathans fucked up, Star Child couldn't escape its faulty programming, the Reapers only did what they were told (in as much as that made sense) and the Illusive Man was indoctrinated. It was all just a big pile of fail all around but there was no clear antagonist. Even if I felt like shooting every second NPC I met.
My absolute favourite villain in the entire ME trilogy is Aria. Because Aria. She's awesome, cool, ruthless, has style, is honest and is not a sociopath. But she will have you killed without hesitation if necessary.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
TIM. Runner ups might be random Batarians and Tela Vasir.
My favorite enemy faction are the Geth. I always liked fighting them, they are challenging enough not to be boring and easy enough not to be annoying
Obviously you've never played multiplayer.
Dat stunlock...
I think the concept art of the indoctrinated Illusive Man Boss Fight in The Art of the Mass Effect Universe would have been a good idea... But I understand why they decided to go for "It'd be better to fight someone who you know, rather than a monster". It would have been better if you made it to the Citadel with your squad and Anderson, and the Illusive Man would have made them attempt to shoot you - and you'd have to disable them non-lethally. I.E. - Legs and arms to stop them fighting, and if you hit them in the chest or head, the squad member would die. Test of aim. It could also work if you took the time to shoot at their legs, etc. the more injured you got by the Illusive Man, and the more injured you got, the more likely it would be that Shepard would die in the Crucible blast. And if your squad members weren't loyal in ME2, even after the Illusive Man died, his control would remain and you'd be forced to kill the squad-mates or they'd shoot you and you'd die before you made it to the Catalyst, so the Reapers would win.
Or it could have worked by paragon or renegade choices, rather than you actually having to shoot them in the legs.
Collectors. Guys with flamethrowers. Vorcha. Vorcha with flamethrowers. Batarians.
Harbinger (in ME2). Illusive Man (also in 2). Tela Vasir.
I don't think I have a favorite named antagonist. They are either a pain in the ass or weaklings. In the former case they are annoying, in the latter they failed as antagonists
My favorite enemy faction are the Geth. I always liked fighting them, they are challenging enough not to be boring and easy enough not to be annoying
Projectile vomit
Even now the rage rises at the mere mention...
Calming breaths...
I can't really say there were any favourite antagonists. I mean, it was very easy to dislike Saren and the Illusive Man later... but they were all kind of weak. Even Sovereign didn't impress me. For an ancient, powerful AI it made surprisingly many mistakes, dragged out the entire conflict for years and then got shot down by a light Frigate. Pathetic. If it was me in Sovereign's place, I would have initiated the Reaper attacks long before anyone ever heard of Commander Shephard.
The Shadow Broker was almost a good villain, but in the end he couldn't keep calm and that got him killed.
ME3 was even more disappointing once you realized that there wasn't a villain at all. The Leviathans fucked up, Star Child couldn't escape its faulty programming, the Reapers only did what they were told (in as much as that made sense) and the Illusive Man was indoctrinated. It was all just a big pile of fail all around but there was no clear antagonist. Even if I felt like shooting every second NPC I met.
My absolute favourite villain in the entire ME trilogy is Aria. Because Aria. She's awesome, cool, ruthless, has style, is honest and is not a sociopath. But she will have you killed without hesitation if necessary.
Sovereign tried. If I remember correctly it's been trying to send the signal to open the Citadel since the Rachni wars and is implied to have manipulated said war to try and make a play for the Citadel. The keepers locked it out because of Prothean meddling. The play with the geth was a more desperate plan. Could it have tried to bumrush the Citadel during peacetime? Maybe. But maybe the Council's response to a large unidentified warship of immense power suddenly appearing in the Widow Nebula is to immediately close the Citadel and call on the fleets to deal with it. A Reaper is not invincible. It needed to use subterfuge still. And the geth was the first army it could use that could challenge the Council races and without losing them to its own indoctrination.
Agree with the rest of your post, except Aria isn't a villain. 
And I'd love to see more yahg. Even pissed off and stupid, the Shadow Broker was impressive.
Sovereign was awesome, definitely the best antagonist of the series. What Harbinger should've been. And miles above what the holokid ended up being.The thorian was also cool, something vastly different from anything else we've seen and a massively missed opportunity in ME3.Thorian > Leviathans. Saren also made a decent Dragon and is superior to subsequent humanoid villains. And I kinda miss Benezia too.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
Kai Leng could've been good, with the original script. It looks like they brought back some of those ideas with Maya Brooks (from my understanding, Leng was a sleeper agent at first).
I can give Brooks credit for how far she was able to take her plan. But I was very satisfied gunning her down.
Saren was awesome, but Sovereign was the brains behind the operation.
Kai Leng COULD have been good... But he was rather annoying. And it was annoying how bad Shepard's aiming became in every cutscene with him.
Look at Saren's history though in the comics and books. He holds his own.
Even Leng is passible in Retribution. But then Deception sets in...
Guest_StreetMagic_*
Saren was awesome, but Sovereign was the brains behind the operation.
Kai Leng COULD have been good... But he was rather annoying. And it was annoying how bad Shepard's aiming became in every cutscene with him.
I have to chalk some of that up to them rewriting and scurrying about doing new scenes before the deadline. Nothing is that refined about it... it looks like the screenplay/choreography is hastily done. Thane's fight scene is just dumb too.. jumping into the sword. And the end of the Citadel battle stutters and is kind of buggy. It make me think they were cranking out work as fast as they could.
Sovereign tried. If I remember correctly it's been trying to send the signal to open the Citadel since the Rachni wars and is implied to have manipulated said war to try and make a play for the Citadel. The keepers locked it out because of Prothean meddling. The play with the geth was a more desperate plan. Could it have tried to bumrush the Citadel during peacetime? Maybe. But maybe the Council's response to a large unidentified warship of immense power suddenly appearing in the Widow Nebula is to immediately close the Citadel and call on the fleets to deal with it. A Reaper is not invincible. It needed to use subterfuge still. And the geth was the first army it could use that could challenge the Council races and without losing them to its own indoctrination.
Agree with the rest of your post, except Aria isn't a villain.
Sovereign was awesome, definitely the best antagonist of the series. What Harbinger should've been. And miles above what the holokid ended up being.The thorian was also cool, something vastly different from anything else we've seen and a massively missed opportunity in ME3.Thorian > Leviathans. Saren also made a decent Dragon and is superior to subsequent humanoid villains. And I kinda miss Benezia too.
The Rachni wars were the Leviathans, trying to recruit a species to battle the Reapers. As far as I remember.
Sovereign had indoctrinated Saren and Benezia. Between the two of them they should have managed to sneak someone onto the Citadel and execute the relay procedure. Saren was a Spectre, he had all clearances and could have simply walked in while the Council wasn't in session. No one needed the Conduit at all, everyone involved had access to the front door, there was no need to find a back door. Neither would Sovereign have needed the Geth.
Even assuming that Sovereign needed to dock with the Citadel to accomplish its goals, it could have pretended to be an ancient prothean vessel which was found by Saren. Again, who's going to say no to the top Spectre if he wants to dock his ship so everyone's scientists can go aboard and study it? They would have welcomed him with open arms, because they were all eager to know more and were greedy for more new tech.
I am sure that there are several other ways to accomplish its goals without firing a single shot.
Sovereign fucked up badly on Eden Prime. First of all, it wasn't necessary to show itself, it could have sent Geth ships instead. Secondly, transforming the colonists and scientists into husks had no purpose and hinted at something else.
Saren's experiments with the Rachni queen and the Krogan clones made no sense either. What would those be used for? The Reapers didn't need them. Was Sovereign just humouring Saren? Was it a hobby?
Speaking of hobbies, what was up with Harbinger's little project? Collectors? Building a human Reaper? Why? What for?
Last but not least, the Reapers are a flawed creation and they do not make sense. Every Reaper is a gestalt AI which consists of millions of advanced, sentient programs. What do they need the genetic material of the dead races for? If the Reapers are storage devices for the history, culture, technology and knowledge of the races they wiped out, why would they risk themselves in combat? Doesn't that go against their directives of preserving organic life in Reaper form?
The Thorian was creepy and could have been more... except I kind of killed it in ME1. So there was no role for it to play in ME3.
Aria is so a villain. She's a warlord, the ruler of Omega, the leader of all gang leaders. How is she not a villain? If you asked her, she'd tell you she is.
P.S. I love Mass Effect but the writers didn't create good antagonists. The entire story only makes sense in hindsight, from the perspective of Commander Shepard. Just one example: On the first mission to Eden Prime you're accompanied by a Spectre named Nihlus who wants to evalute your skills because you are considered to become the first human Spectre. The problem is... Eden Prime was not planned to be a combat mission. If Sovereign and the Geth hadn't attacked, then the Normandy would have landed on a peaceful, agricultural planet, Shepard would have signed for the Prothean Beacon and then they would have flown to the Citadel. The only thing Nihlus could have judged would have been Shepard's prowess with paperwork.
And let's just forget about how the Council publically announces and broadcasts galaxywide the identity of their newest secret agent. Who becomes a celebrity that endorses stores on the Citadel. Yeah...
It's like watching an old James Bond film - no one can shoot if their life depended on it, too much done to look "cool" - e.g. Thane hesitating before shooting Kai Leng, etc. I think Kai Leng was BioWare's way of saying, "We need something to stop Shepard succeeding in these situations". I don't have a problem with it, I just think it could have been a lot better.
Even now the rage rises at the mere mention...
Calming breaths...
Rage at the character herself, or the fight? I like has as an antagonist because she brings up a good point on her death and because of Shepard's awesome renegade lines in the hostage encounter
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