Yes it is. It's a fine score, 75 is a fine score, who cares if the other games in the series got 90s? I'll bet you that there were tons of people who worked really hard and achieved a lot in making this game. Sure, it didn't turn out exactly as everyone hoped, but there's no magical cookbook for making a perfect multi-million dollar piece of software. I can see us being disappointed, I'm disappointed, but the people who worked on the game? I see no reason why they should feel bad.
A 75 is pretty much average with how the gaming industry reviews games. It's not like the movie industry where the average for reviews is closer to 50. The gaming industry largely uses the American education grading system and in there, 75 is a C. That's not a good score, especially after 5 years of freedom and a fairly large budget.
I'm not saying they need to be ashamed of releasing a product but they definitely shouldn't be proud of hitting average. Considering the studio's development record, I don't think anyone in Bioware is feeling particularly pleased today. Not to mention I sort of agree with John Walker that some of these scores are being inflated just due to the fact that it has the name Mass Effect in it.
Honesty in marketing is a big deal. If you want to have a successful company that is. Look at NMS, think it's not a big deal after that?
I mean it doesn't matter to me but fans are just going to see it as a big F U, with no admission of either fault or ongoing support.
but I expect them to release much more PR in the future anyway which will prove my point.
I'm sure there will be some level of introspection in the future and if there isn't then I feel fine on calling them out about that. However when chances are high that a large majority of the development team is depressed about getting publicly thrashed, I see no reason for the marketing and higher-ups to kick them even further down. They almost assuredly know they fucked up. That statement wasn't just for the public but internally as well.
It's a bullshit PR statement that even the person writing it probably doesn't agree with. Is this hurting or misleading anybody? No. They don't need to admit fault at this exact date. That's more concerning when they're working on future projects or updates and making sure they know what went wrong and how they could prevent future incidents.