The Transparency of Mass Effect 2
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Instead, you gain your crew's loyalty by doing explicitly spelled out "loyalty missions". What this means is that it doesn't matter how you treat your crew, because as long as you help solve their problems you're okay in their book. This is very disappointing because it means you can be a total boyscout (or girlscout) and gain the respect of everyone, or you can be a jerk and still gain the respect of everyone.
Wouldn't it be so much better if your crew reacted to you based on your actions throughout the game? I picked a rare Renegade option early on and pissed off Tali, your engineer friend and former teammate from the first game. When I ran into her later on in the game, all was well. When Garrus, a crime-fighting vigilante, wants you to assist him in his quest for vengeance at the hands of a rat, he applauds your decision to either aid him in the assassination or talk him out of it. These win/win situations cheapen the decisions. Shouldn't your character be judged by their actions throughout rather than if you agree to help with personal matters when the fate of the galaxy is at stake?
It's also disappointing that there's little to no camaraderie between your individual crew members. I would frequently bring characters on missions if I felt like they'd have some unique perspective on the matter, but they very seldom comment on the task at hand. And rarely do they ever speak with each other. One would think the Justicar, an Asari who believes that all who don't obey the law should be subject to capital punishment, would have an issue with Jack, one of the angriest, most violent criminals in the galaxy. Yet they never make any mention of one another. For shame.
