So, why don't people like Kai Leng?

[Tealius Maximus]

I haven't played through ME3 yet but I just wanna ask why

[barzai]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6WE1ZVIc_w

[Ahab]

You are not supposed to like "the bad guy."
There are a great many glaringly obvious reasons for this. All of these reasons add up to, quite literally WHY we call them "the bad guys."

[LofLM🇵🇷]

He’s as “edgy” as those climate activists who block the roads lmao. The wannabe cyber ninja-edgelord and Cerberus lackey. It’s wild that, in a series with villains as badass and based as a rogue Spectre and the mysteriously shady Cerberus chieftain, someone like Leng exists.

Thessia aftermath be like:
*opens messages
*new message: “Evacuating Thessia”
*Me/Shepard thinking* “oh this must be an update on the situation”
*”oh, good, you opened this message ”

The writers intended him to be a threat but he comes off nothing like that to me. His Thessia message is something you'd get over on Xbox Live from some random ass kid. His presentation/perception in the game seems to really hinge on the player thinking he's intimidating. Leng failed because most players didn’t perceive him as a badass supervillain who’s gonna smash it to the gates and show you who the boss is.
Plus this pendejo said something like "Your friend Thane died like a coward.” and like, my friend, what are you talking about? Not only nothing about Thane's death/sacrifice was cowardly but KL immediately follows this by running away like a little ♥♥♥♥♥ the second his shields get to half and hides behind the gunship he came with. And he calls others cowards? foh

Leng compared to previous villains like Saren still falls flat imo. Saren was way more charismatic, sometimes funny, philosophical, naive and tragic because he thought his sacrifice would save him from the Reapers’ wrath. That he thought that he’s not just a puppet for the Reapers. I wanted to recruit him and Nihlus so bad! Benezia too, she seemed like a regular bland sidekick to me when I first ever played ME, until the end of her boss fight, she was actually cooperative and gave us intel! And her death is even more sad when you have Liara with you.

[barzai]

Originally posted by Ahab:

You are not supposed to like "the bad guy."
There are a great many glaringly obvious reasons for this. All of these reasons add up to, quite literally WHY we call them "the bad guys."

Yeah, but with KL it goes waaay beyond his being "a bad guy."

[BeaverNuggets91]

Kai Leng is a try-hard because he is constantly living is Shepard's shadow. He is Cerberus's second-rate replacement for the literal God they had brought back to life months earlier. Kai Leng knows this, is constantly reminded of his place by the illusive Man, and constantly fails to stop Shepard at every turn. He wants to live up to Shepard's legacy but he never will, so he lashes out in petty and "edgelord" ways, i.e. his email.

I never read the comics featuring his character, but in the game he just comes off as resentful, but jealous of Shepard. His whole objective is to undermine Shepard at every turn, someone he intrinsically knows is far superior to him.

There were probably ways the devs could have conveyed this better, but I don't necessarily hate how Leng is portrayed. He just comes off as a petty villain like Team Rocket; overly cheesy, exists to stop the protagonist but constantly fails at every attempt. They may get some minor victories here and there, but ultimately Leng is just a second-rate replacement for Shepard and just acts out of spite.

[Puffing Magic Dragon]

He thinks his ♥♥♥♥ don't stink. Shepard corrects that lol

[Go0lden_Archer]

because you win and then oyu lose in cutscene vs him, that alone is sign of ♥♥♥♥ writing, and makes that dumb idiot annoying

[Lain]

Basically what other people said, + we never really get to really know him and his motives and what drives him to be illusive man's personal lapdog.

Why does he support cerberus? Why does illusive man use him? Is he actually skilled or not?

ME3 tries to inflate his importance, but fails to inform us why he should be important and the only reason he gets one over Shepard is because of a one time plot armor :P While that pissed me off, it was not because i was bested but because Bioware failed to make me feel defeated when i was quite clearly winning.

In short he's the worst thing happening to the ME trilogy exept for ME3 endings, and they coulda done him and the thessia fight much better.

[Talilover]

He's a "crawling in my skin top operative at the hedgehog academy and involved in numerous secret raids with 300 confirmed kills" type of oc that comes out of nowhere at the end of a trilogy to take the role of antagonist over other characters like TIM or even Harbinger. He has no charm or intimidation like these two or other baddies from before like Saren, his entire character is being so cool and strong and not liking daisies or sunshine and is just rammed down our throat.

I can think of a couple individuals on these forums who would probably be all for Kai Leng, but most of the population see's him for the edgey and lame drivel he is.

[Rotten_]

He's basically Sasuke or Madara but in Mass Effect, i'm one of the few who actually likes Kai Leng, because he makes Shepard look Badass and I like the voice actor. (Troy Baker)

[Naver]

He came out of nowhere in ME3 and started trashtalking Shepard. What more reason do we need?

He had no build up, no foreshadowing and we are suddenly supposed to see him as a serious threat. That was part of the bad writing in ME3.

[GoreTiger]

Originally posted by Tealius Maximus:

I haven't played through ME3 yet but I just wanna ask why

Most people think he came out of nowheres (they didn't read the comics) so he just seems like this obnoxious rando cyberninja wannabe.

He's basically supposed to be shep if shep had stayed with cerberus after me2.

A lot of people also don't like him because of a certain death he's responsible for, you'll find that out later. He was losing that fight and got lucky.

Other then that he's just not a very good, fleshed out character. You don't see much of him besides a few cutscenes. He has no real backstory in-game. The only things that make him stand out from the other cerberus phantoms is:

1.He doesn't wear a helmet

2. He addresses shep directly.

If it wasn't for those two things, You could put a helmet on him and he's just another phantom cerberus

[LarvaLounge]

He's embarrassing. All the 'plot armor' nonsense didn't really bother me. But the moment he came on screen I said "WTF? Why is this ridiculous douche bag pooping all over my favorite game trilogy?"

[Mr_Faorry]

Originally posted by Ahab:

You are not supposed to like "the bad guy."
There are a great many glaringly obvious reasons for this. All of these reasons add up to, quite literally WHY we call them "the bad guys."

People love The Illusive Man and Saren despite the fact that they're "the bad guy", there're characters you love to hate because they're good characters. Kai Leng isn't hated because he's "the bad guy", he's hated because he's a bad character.

Originally posted by GoreTiger:

Most people think he came out of nowheres (they didn't read the comics) so he just seems like this obnoxious rando cyberninja wannabe.

You shouldn't need to read some random comic to understand the game.
If they're going to bring in a character and set them up as the players main rival then they need to actually introduce them in the game not hope you read some random comic.

[GoreTiger]

Originally posted by Mr_Faorry:

Originally posted by Ahab:

You are not supposed to like "the bad guy."
There are a great many glaringly obvious reasons for this. All of these reasons add up to, quite literally WHY we call them "the bad guys."

People love The Illusive Man and Saren despite the fact that they're "the bad guy", there're characters you love to hate because they're good characters. Kai Leng isn't hated because he's "the bad guy", he's hated because he's a bad character.

Originally posted by GoreTiger:

Most people think he came out of nowheres (they didn't read the comics) so he just seems like this obnoxious rando cyberninja wannabe.

You shouldn't need to read some random comic to understand the game.
If they're going to bring in a character and set them up as the players main rival then they need to actually introduce them in the game not hope you read some random comic.

I half-way agree with you, But them doing that was no stranger to the series. They did with with Liara and to explain what she had been doing for 2 years before me2 came out. They did it with Vega except instead of a comic he got an anime.