Paragon and renegade were obvious stand ins for the two major sides of US politics, liberal democrat and liberal conservative, even being coded as red and blue for good measure.
Like with US capitalist "democracy", your choices are aesthetic and the results will always be disappointing and shallow, because they change reality of the story and the ending very little. The sides of paragon and renegade end up just being two sides of the same shit sandwich.
And just like in liberal politics, wishing for anything better is treated as not an option.
So SPOILERS was the "green" ending added in a patch? Because that changes the game a bit.
IIRC it was in at launch but it also required you to get the resource-ometer up high enough that I didn't have the option despite doing all side content I could see. It was also easier if you imported a save.