Mass Effect 2 - Old Fashioned Prejudices

I'm not sure what to make of this, so I'll just turn it over to you.  Omega spotted this piece at Rebel Yell that looks at racial diversity and related issues in modern games, using Mass Effect 2 as a example that looks progressive on the surface, but perhaps isn't - or so they argue:

In an interview with gaming industry blog Develop, Raven Software’s Manveer Heir says that “lack of diversity, specifically race but also gender and sexuality, is across the board with in-game characters… How often do we play as the white space marine?”

Going by that criteria, “Mass Effect 2” seems like a fairly progressive, if not outright diverse game. But let’s take a closer look.

The Commander Shepard on the game’s box – the thing that markets the game to the public – is a white male. He actually looks a lot like most other action game (and action movie) protagonists: He’s Heir’s “white space marine.”