Technically, the only party members you had to recruit in ME1 were Kaidan, Ashley, and Liara, if I remember correctly. You could even leave Tali behind once you got the dirt on Saren from her, I think. And like Fraser said, the middle of the trilogy is often where things drag a bit. And from the way the OXM reads in the text, beyond just the bullet points, it sounds like the story ends well, it's just a slow burn. But that was honestly true of the first game as well: Virmire to the awesome fight up the Citadel Tower was by far the best part of Mass Effect.
And I'm pretty sure that Bioware has come out and said explicitly that the game can end with everyone on the team, including Shepard, dying. That's not how my Shepard rolls, though.