10 Awful Villains That Ruined Amazing Video Games
2. Kai Leng - Mass Effect 3
While many will maintain that Mass Effect 3 was ruined by its infamously underwhelming ending, what truly sinks it is the presence of the unbearably goofy recurring villain Kai Leng.
As The Illusive Man's lackey, Kai Leng is basically a parody of a badass assassin - a Metal Gear-esque cyborg ninja who BioWare seemingly threw in the game in order to appease teenage boys, or so it seems.
Beyond wasting the vocal talents of the great Troy Baker - who himself admitted the character was terrible - Kai Leng is simply an over-designed, cringey edgelord character antagonism towards Shepard feels rushed and unearned.
As a result Leng casts a dark pall over the game every time he shows up, unaided by his tendency to spout corny one-liners and generally act like he came out of a different video game franchise entirely (again, Metal Gear).
The Mass Effect novels certainly flesh him out more, but when you're playing games that already number dozens of hours each, it feels like a cop-out to make the player do a ton of required reading to make him interesting.