The change they made to combat didn't have much to do with challenge but with making it feel better to play. Mass Effect 2 is my least favorite of the series, but that does not matter to the value of the brand and BioWare, because it's a whole lot of people's favorite. Alanah Pearce just did a video on what BioWare meant to people in the industry, and there was one testimonial of a developer that stuck out to me who brought up just how important that suicide mission design in ME2 was to what he does in his own work.