I am not a big fan of Lord of the Rings, but this game just blew me away... Real Score: 9.2
I love the leveling up of units in this game. Unlike other RTS games with RPG elements like WarCraft III, where only a select couple of units can level up, EVERY unit can gain levels in this game.. Leveling up makes units more powerful, as well as unlocks new abilities and upgrades.
Another great thing I liked was the different powers, a feature I loved from several other strategy games, such as C&C Generals, C&C3, Advance Wars, etc. Killing enemies gives you power points to spend on new powers. Once charged, powers can be unleashed on the battlefield... with great effect. One setback was that the good factions all had the exact same powers, and all the evil factions had the exact same powers, which was a bit lame. But the feature still rocked.
BFME had an interesting campaign map, in which you followed the armies as they moved across Middle-Earth. In some instances, you could choose the territories you could move into, and each one had different advantages given to your units. Very invigorating and interesting.
BFME still had a few flaws, though. For one, the building placement. Instead of traditional RTS games in which you got to choose both the number and location of your buildings, BFME1 provides you with only a limited number of buildings like in Star Wars: Empire at War, as well as limiting building placement to "build pads," which are placed at the beginning of the game. Although there were neutral build pads that could be claimed all around the maps, this was still rather restrictive.
Also, the game was rather hard. Instead of units being represented as a single unit, units were represented by squads of units. Thus making them hard to kill, and easier to rush successfully.
Still, BFME1 is an amazing game. I would highly recommend it to RTS, RPG, and Lord of the Rings fans.
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 9
Sound: 7
Value: 10
Tilt: 8
Final Score: 9.2 (superb)