The thing you didn’t want to happen just might have happened. On the Mass Effect 3 Facebook page a new posted was made which stated:
Mass Effect 3 will be released in the first three months of 2012. The development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series, ensuring that it exceeds everyone’s expectations.†– Casey Hudson, Executive Producer Mass Effect series
So now we can expect to see what Shepard’s doing sometime in the first three months of 2012. At least you have the new screenshots to look at.