Paragon and renegade were obvious stand ins for the two major sides of US politics, liberal democrat and liberal conservative, even being coded as red and blue for good measure.
Like with US capitalist “democracy”, your choices are aesthetic and the results will always be disappointing and shallow, because they change reality of the story and the ending very little. The sides of paragon and renegade end up just being two sides of the same shit sandwich.
And just like in liberal politics, wishing for anything better is treated as not an option.
It was also way more edgy and horny than the first one. Like regardless of the direction in which you nudged Garrus, the wide-eyed rookie cop in the first game, in the second game he’s the fucking Punisher and hunts down gangs on a seedy crime planet