...the next go-through I didn't lose anybody, so overall I felt they went kinda soft on the player. However, I guess I took for granted that my Shepard got imported from ME1, meaning he had a lot of paragon and even a decent amount of renegade right from day one. Being able to meet those dialogue tree requirements are pretty key to maintaining loyalty.
I definitely agree with you on thinking it was a little soft on the player. None of the "who do you use" decisions were that tough -- YMMV, of course -- and the only other real requirement were the upgrades and loyalty missions.
I imported my Shepard, so we started at pretty much the same point. I'm a completionist, so I was going everywhere and doing everything I could find along the way. (I completely drained something like half the planets in the galaxy before I realized I was out of stuff to buy... with like 300k extra of each resource.)
I got to the end of the game and beat it with no casualties. Then I did my Renegade playthrough and got no casualties, even though I (deliberately) wasn't nearly as thorough.
I actually made a final playthrough, ignoring loyalty missions and upgrades just to see what would happen -- and wow, was that a bloodbath. Heh. I like the ending with Joker, though.
For the record, that last playthrough was an "everyone's dead". Lost several just getting to the station, lost one to the bugs, I think someone got shot right after the "tech in the tunnels" section, lost one in the rear guard, one while fleeing, then Shepard bought it at the end. Awesome.
