Does he really have to die in the Shroud?

he dies regardless, either because he gave up his life to fix the STG sabotage, or because you shoot him for trying to do so.

Sword - the fleet - did very well and saw the good ending outcome with everyone united however Hammer which is the ground forces saw the bad ending and thus the end game was affected though on a whole the final choice - I did the synthetic one, shame you can't save before deciding that - anyway the earth ending was good with the big ben left intact, what little that actually does.

Liked the outcome of the synthetic choice although destroying the Reapers is a better alternative I guess, would have killed every synthetic being however, most notably the Geth and probably AI and VI creations.

Regardless the relays explode and Normandy is caught in the blast wave from crucible without much of a thing else happening, Shepard surviving or at least being alive at the end would have been good but it seems unlikely to occur if the readiness rating itself has no impact on how the sword and hammer outcomes go, it's either up to other decisions in-game - nearly all paragon here but two renegade choices had to be made or the game would probably have been over - or maybe it's also down to system readiness total.

Might just have been me but that officer next to Anderson in the last mission is probably the main guy from Mass Effect: Infiltration.
(The mobile phone game you can play to get a better rating, perhaps it was that which was missing, no ground missions done so the troops are decimated and thus the first attempt at attacking the Destroyer Reaper fails.

save her:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mass-Effect-3/Mass-Effect-3-Gameplay-Strategy-amp-Builds-Discussion-Spoilers-allowed/Want-to-Save-Tali-Or-Wrex-Peace-between-GethQuarians-Here039s-how-9629045-1.html