I don't know how much EA had to do with Mass Effect anyway - Bioware seemed to know what they were doing, although you never know what happens behind the scenes
EA do seem to meddle in their developers' games a whole lot, especially compared to someone like Take Two (2K, Rockstar, Irrational) who conversely give a great deal of freedom and trust to theirs. You don't have to look far to see examples of their cynical money-grabbing schemes though (eg. taking the piss with Need For Speed DLC, micro-transactions in Dead Space 3 ...)