Is it wrong to 'love' a game that was never finished?

Recently I've been putting a few hours into Mass Effect 3 in an attempt to finally get it finished. As a game that's been on the go for at least the past year I'd be lying if I said I haven't come to love the game in the same way I'd enjoyed the previous games in the series.

Some might say that this is completely irrational. How can I claim to 'love' a game if I don't know the ending? Okay, so you come back at me and say that it is widely documented that the ending of Mass Effect 3 is exceptional in as much as it is about as poor as any decent game's ending could be. To me that's irrelevant; you could put any game in this scenario and still have this argument.

There are though a couple of factors that I'm taking for granted that should first be made apparent: firstly, I'm assuming that you haven't stopped playing the game, also I'm imagining you've played the game long enough to at least get an idea of some of the key plot concepts. 

With all of that aside, what is there to actually say here. Well, in terms of my recent Mass Effect experience, one might well argue that I'm still reliving the nostalgia of the previous game and the latest instalment isn't the game I'm really enjoying; by the time I finish the game I will have seen all of its shortcomings and forgotten what I thought I'd liked so much about it. 

Source:gamingbolt

Surely though the point isn't about how I feel after I've turned off the console with the main storyline completed and I'm ready to move onto the next game. If, as I am currently, you are enjoying a game that you're yet to finish, I'd say that this is the best time to 'love' it. The whole idea of playing games can't purely be to say to your friends 'I've finished a game'. Each game poses it's own challenges, pushing players to improve whether that be in replays of the campaign or other single player modes or in online and multiplayer environments. In many cases it is not even the case that there are ways to get better after the first time, sometimes games push you to get better before getting to the end the first time round (Dark Souls is probably the most notorious example here).

Though finishing a game is surely the main objective, most developers (I would imagine) would say that the creating the best journey is more important than anything other individual element. Therefore, I'm going to suggest that the best thing for a gamer is playing a good game, and if you don't finish it, as disappointing as that definitely is, it doesn't mean you can't or don't love the game.