the thing that sets female shepard appart from other games is there's a huge amount of dialogue in the game and it is all voiced. there's not to many rpgs i can think of that have even close to that. besides i could never stand the voice for male shepard and have yet to complete a playthrough on any of the 3 games.

although Jemy mentioned it any list without the longest journey/dreamfall protagonists is a crap list.

Darcy from urban chaos was a great character in a game that predated grand theft auto 3 and wasn't to popular because you played a cop, and a black female one at that.

there's a lot more female characters with substance most of which are absent from this discussion and my memory at the moment…