I've never been able to kill Major Vargas. I always just grab the lose card, turn off the alarm and flee. I've unloaded an ungodly amount of fire power into her without dying. Can you actually kill her?

To kill her you have to first take out a couple of power generators behind her, then once those are destroyed you can take out her shield and kill her if you throw enough firepower at her. But if you don't take out those power generators her shield will just absorb anything you throw at it.

All that and she doesn't even get a cut scene death. I kind of miss the days of poorly acted FMV.

Well, considering that you probably either vaporized her, liquified her, or blew her to bits that doesn't exactly leave much time for some last words in a dramatic death scene.

I like running around her and just taking the keycard.

I've just finished the game. I destroyed 2 power generators near Vargas in the final scene with a spider bomb and then I used AR-7 rocket launcher to kill her. Wasn't so easy still, she has strong shields even without generators, I spent a dozen of shots.

Actually, the game itself suggests (in a way) how to kill her. When you get out of the last elevator - on the floor when you meet her- instead of going directly the direction where she is, you can go down, and in a crate in a small room behind the blue door are some rocket clip (i guess its SW 404 multiple rocket launcher ). They suggest using blast for eliminating tohse power generators. Moreover, there is the PL-1 "Unifier" Plasma Rifle and some energy cells, self explanatory - just feed Vargas enough plasma to kill her. I did, and it worked pretty well: the rifle shoots very fast and actually prevents Vargas from firing back at you.

I always found that prettty funny