I completely disagree with your suggestion that an epic start is a bad one. Many other games had such an introduction in the past and it worked really well, for exemple Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, even WotR is up there...
That's a pretty odd selection, as neither of the titles are acclaimed for their story telling - especially Mass Effect3, where you could have picked an entry that wasn't a complete dumpster fire.
Skyrim intro is so popular it became a meme at this point and I would argue that its story telling is effective. It is there to exposes the two most important conflicts of the game which is the war and the dragon threat. Mass effect 3 "dumpster fire" part is its ending, the intro is pretty solid.
