After going several rounds with Parallels technical support, Origin/Mass Effect 3 still won't start under Parallels. The problem still seems to be that Origin isn't seeing the Parallels install as valid despite my machine far surpassing the system requirements. The game runs perfectly under Boot Camp.
The only solution for this will be for the Parallels developers to take an interest and figure out exactly what Origin is seeing that makes it gives a license failure for Mass Effect 3, and any other Origin game.
edit: Should add the best guess from Parallels tech support was Origin wouldn't see a virtual disk image as a real piece of hardware, preventing Origin's copy protection from working.
Last edited: Dec 31, 2012