Thrown into this game with a cutscene that does nothing to interest you for the things about to come. I get some games love opening with a beautiful cinematic but it was such a dull opening for what sadly turned out to be a rather dull game.
It genuinely doesn't take long to see what this game is about. You have to help capture an item that will aid you in fighting Sauron while at the same time trying to protect the people fighting against him. That's the plot of the game in a nutshell. It's not all that interesting because they so poorly implement it into the game (mostly through boring cutscenes). I much preferred how they did it in the previous game - Dialogue was spoken throughout the adventure with a cutscene thrown in now and then to address a major plot point.
The gameplay is very similar to the first game as well. Sadly though, The platforming was hit with a heavy dose of unrealistic jumping around. You don't even have to attempt to traverse a building to climb it, You just climb it regardless by tapping the A button and that didn't really make much sense to me. I get making it a little easier but the platforming was totally fine in the first game and what they did in this game really butchered it.
The combat is ok, Not as fun as the first game though. I felt they could have done something different, Maybe add some kind of variety. But it's still very much the same and while it's not bad and easy to get into, The combat grows stale after a while. Same applies to the needless collectables scattered throughout the map. Only one part of the collectables adds any backstory to the game, Everything else is just filler and not worth checking out.
Visually, The game looks similar to what it did in the previous instalment. I do have major issues with lag though and whenever I get one of the memory collectables, The game freezes on me and I have to exit out of it complete it and start the game up again. It's quite frustrating if you ask me. And despite being an open world, There is surprisingly very little to do. I've spent 15 hours playing this game and already cleared every area (there's about 4-5 of them), Got every collectable and did near every side quest. The only thing I have left is the main missions, Which generally don't take more than 5-10 minutes a piece to complete. I bring up the fact that there is nothing to do because there aren't that many collectables in each area and there are even fewer genuine side quests (with an actual story, not some randomly spawned repetitive mission). It really doesn't take much to complete this game, I am gonna have it finished well within 20 hours.
Side Note on Loot Boxes: Don't see what the big deal was. I hate loot boxes as it but you can honestly play this entire game and not have to buy a single one. Sadly though, It is a very pay rigged system. Only 2 boxes are capable of building with silver coins, which are earned through scrapping items you don't need and by collecting items from bosses. The rest are bought with gold coins and these gold coins cost $20 a piece to get. It's a clear rip-off but again, It is not needed to enjoy and complete the game so don't worry about it.
Overall: 5/10
Technical issues, Repetitiveness and general lack of improvement with the game makes this one of the most disappointing games I've played in recent years. Even after all this time, They couldn't have patched all these crash issues and bugs? That kind of screams laziness to me when you aren't addressing known issues that really effect how someone plays the game.