This seems very similar to the minds behind Lost. They claimed throughout the series that the story was planned from the beginning.
This. Yes.
I don't give a whoot what happened in Origins. I would love the next title opened up where we left on moon and there was a story running with the O4 (sans Richto) running parallel to the N4. We were able to see the impact each crew made on the other's fate, based on choices made in the previous game. If the devs just came out and said "Look we f*cked up, lets just pretend that didn't happened. Oh and hey, we have a new map with Easter Eggs and Side Quests that are storyline relevant." I would be like "We coo."