[LoweGear]

It's quite simple. For the sake of this particular argument, my definition of "Victory" is militarily: basically, stop the Reapers from wiping out all life in the galaxy, which is pretty much how many of the characters in the game see it. Only Shepard talks to the Crucible and gets the lowdown of the Reaper's entire deal. Outside of that, the galaxy outside knows nothing of the Reaper's intentions or whatnot, and so care not for the method of how they're stopped, merely that they are.

All three are "Victories" in the sense that all of them basically stop the Reapers from killing everyone, which fulfills that particular condition, and thus can be considered "Victories" in the above definition. Everything else is just moral gravy to be discussed on forums like this one. If I was going to be killed by a man and had only a moment to spare, I don't care if it was all in his plan for me to kill him: I'll be alive because I defended myself and killed him first, his reasons be damned. It'd be said if my best friend had to be killed in the process yes, and would dampen that feel of surviving, but at the end I'd be alive, and all I can do is just live to the best of my ability for his sake as well.