And here's the problem.
What if a writer doesn't want the protagonist to 'win' at all? They survive, and that's it? Whatever mission they're on is not a 'little victory,' it's not the protagonist 'getting to be the hero,' it's the other guy being better and the protagonist losing, and that's all there is to it.
Same thing. The implication here is that our protagonist is just so awesome it's incomprehensible that a single human could best him, and any antagonist needs waves of mooks to win. What if the writers want to show a human antagonist as equal or better?
You can still do that without robbing the player of agency. To give an example, let's use the Virmire cut scene "defeat". The transition could have gone a bit better, but honestly, Saren, who by that time is a legit, proven bad ass, and a credible villain, turning the tide of a fight and getting a momentary upper hand is a perfect example of what you are talking about. The player still has agency. We still get to fight Saren, and even though we loose, we never have to hold the idiot ball.
The problem with the Temple is, simply put, my Shepard, and most people's Shepard, would have opened up on Kai the moment he appeared, and killed the stupid space ninja hard. Kai ONLY wins, both on Thesia and on the Citadel, because Shepard acts like a moron. First in letting Thane, who's terminally ill, fight him alone. Second, for not just killing him on site during the Temple confrontation, and giving his backup time to get in place, not to mention, standing there with her thumb up her butt while TIM gets the intel from the beacon.
The issue isn't that we got beaten, it's that we got beaten in a scenario where it's not even remotely credible that we would get beaten, because we've won much worse fights before. We've downed a single gunship on foot no less than three times. Garrus's recruitment mission. Samara's recruitment mission, and Kasumi's Loyalty mission. We've gone toe to toe with much worse opponents on foot. Saren, Husk Saren, Benezia, a Thresher Maw, two or three Reapers (depending on if you count Rachoc as "on foot", which I don't), Harvesters, Atlas Mechs, Tela Varis, a Geth Colossus, a Geth Drop Ship, Krogan Battlemasters, and the Shadow Broker. They NEVER managed to establish, within the context of the game, that Kai Leng had anywhere near the level of juice needed to make a serious opponent for Shepard.
Kai Leng reminds me more of the Weyrloc Clanspeaker. Every time he shows up, I keep waiting for a Renegade Interrupt to put him down in a humiliating and dismissive fashion that includes the line "Shut up, the adults are talking," because he behaves like a petulant child.
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