It's not a great game. Unfortunately, the horrible online multiplayer made it a regretful purchase for even $9.99.
I've always been quite intrigue by the LOTR series. Aside from that, I am a big RTS fan, and I almost got the game when it first came out.
Eventually, I got it for $9.99 after two years it came out. Unfortunately, I still found it to be a regretful purchase.
Starting with the good, the graphic is gorgeous, and music is also quite amazing. Also, the epic scale of the battle is also accompanied with a few innovative feature, such as purchasing upgrades and using spells. However, as a whole, I was more than a bit disappointed with it.
On the other hand, the campaign is quite short and even a bit redundant. Further more, instead of being rewarded with the usual epic cinematics upon the completion, you get some poorly narrated lines as the camera pans through some still pictures.
The units are also limited. Despite the difference in graphic, each faction plays pretty much the same, with very little differences. However, in my humble opinion, the online features made me urge you to skip this game.
The online setup is extremely unforgiving, due to the fact that you can only register one name per CD key. If you messed it up like I did, too bad.
I worked as a computer technician before. With that said, I had plenty of experiences calling up tech support to assist my clients. However, EA customer support is BY FAR, THE WORST customer support I've encountered. It's nearly impossible to find its phone number of the website, which gave me the impression that EA is doing everything possible to prevent you from calling. Furthermore, the automated message repeated the sentence "we are currently experiencing high volume of calls, please stay on the line or call back later" continuously with about a 2 second interval in between (it's not a direct quote); it drove me crazy.
The customer service people were not helpful at all. After being transfered again and again for more than an hour, I decided to give up. Even to this day, I never had a chance to experience the online gameplay.
As far as I'm concerned, the love of the novels really won't make you enjoy this game much more. To sum up, it's unfortunately to see a game with such a great potential delivers such a poor result. You might just enjoy Warcraft III or Age of Mythology a lot more.