Eragon is a very shallow game that many will be able to beat in a matter of hours.
Gameplay:
The gameplay of Eragon is simply defined as a mix of Panzer Dragoon and Lord of the Rings and doing a poor job at preforming both. The Lord of the Rings levels are pretty boring affairs, with plenty of button mashing and special attaks to preform. Many will find the combat so boring that they will just stand on the side of a battle and shoot arrows at the enemies, which when drawn to full strength, can kill the enemies with one hit. Meanwhile, either your co-op buddy or CPU get beat to death. To make matters worse, the game features no online component whatsoever, something that is expected after the Return of the King's online effort on PS2. Most of the dullness in combat comes from the constant repeat of enemies with no real changes through out the game. Their are always two armies against you, the Urgals and the King's men, and both feature the same set of enemies, sans the fact that Urgals got those walking beast that are clearly made to replace the Ogres enemies from LOTR.
Now, as for the Panzer Dragoon levels, they only make up roughly %30 of the game, and they are just as or even worse than the LOTR levels. The first thing you notice about these are that they actually pose a challenge compared to LOTR levels. Most of this comes from the fact that levels are somewhat glitchy, leading to a trail and error state to figure out what parts are glitchy and also what to kill. Yes, you will die a great deal on these levels, trying to figure out whats killing you everytime you fly through a certain valley or gorge.
Graphics:
Probably the worst graphical game on the Xbox 360 to date. I mean, it looks like they did nothing to make it stand out from a typical Playstation 2 affair. Everything has a very flat look to it, and to make matters worse, the game even features a somewhat staler look when played in HD. My best bet would be that they literally took the engine from LOTR series and just changed a few models and animations to make it Eragon. Finally, the game features loads of glitches in the Panzer Dragoon Levels and the LOTR levels have a great amount of clipping going on when in tight corridors(I didn't know you can fight in mid-air by the way...).
Sound:
This is actually one of the best things about this game. The voice-acting is actually decent for a change, and the music is pretty great, despite only have like 5-6 tracks in the soundtrack. yes, you will be driven bonkers by the same songs over and over by the end of the game, but lucky, this is Xbox 360, so you got custom tracks, which works smoothly as well.
Story:
To tell the truth, the story line the game gives actually makes me want to see the movie at some point. The story is pretty much supposed to be the story of Eragon, which is that he is a new dragon rider and this is his quest to save the world, or something like that. Along the way, cool people on your side die, and some chick helps you save your dragon at some point. You kill the leader of the other side at the end of the game and that raps it up. Yeah?
Overall: 4.0/10.0
This game is probably not worth anyone's time at this point except for hardcore Eragon fans and achievement lovers since the game's achievements are among the easiest to obtain. LOTR fans are better off waiting for the next game to attempt this type of action since you will grow bored within the first mission. If your still interested in the game, May I suggest buying it used over renting it? The game is easy to find with a $8-10 price tag and possibly lower by the time some people read this.