Ive been playing this continuously since it came out, and it is to sum it up an epic game.
Overall there are 6 factions: Dwarves, Elves, Men of the West, Mordor, Isengard and Goblins.
All these factions feel really unique and different, e.g. goblin infantry can climb over walls, mordor has a massive elephant unit and elves have some uber powerfull upgrade arrows called hawthorn arrows. These are just a few of the differences and can lead to some really tactical multi-race multiplayer battles. Another key difference between the races is that they all have different heros. Heros are slightly OP and can turn the tide of battle with thier special powers such as Aragon being able to make basic enemy units near him flee. The races also have powers much like the god powers in age of mythology although the battle for middle earth ones are rechargable and there are a greater number of them. this power can do anything from boosting armour and attck to summoning a Balrog or a meteor shower.
In a normal skirmish you will need to build a base, each race will have different buildings and even different ways of collecting recources. The troops you build will come in squads which adds to the scale of the fights. One problem with combat is that basic units are really weak and confronted by other units that have the advantage they can be wiped out in a matter of seconds e,g, cavalry charge against swordmen infantry. This is dealt with though when u start to equip them with heavy armour which adds greatly to thier durability and they can even start to combat hero's and survive special power attacks which mean fights last much longer. The combat advantage system is similar to other rts games where cavalry are strong against swordsmen and pikemen are better against cavalry ( or in mordors case trolls).
You can also make custom heros with customizable apperance, stats and skills. The one problem with this is that there isnt enough armour to make your heros look vastly different to other custom heros of similar race.
The campaign is split into a good campaign and an evil one with totaly different missions. The campaign is fun but i barely ever replay it as the other modes are better.
The War of the ring mode is another higlight which turns the battle for middle earth into a game of risk.
Online is a great attraction to as the communitys have built many maps of with custom heros fighting against waves of enemys is particulaly fun.
One problem which i had was the change from being given a fort with pre designated building spots that was in BFME 1 an age of empires style building, and the walls you build couldnt have troops on them which meant seiges were alot less fun than in BMFE1. This problem was dealt with buy the community introducing maps with the forts from BFME1 in.
To sum it up the graphics are great for a 2006 game, the battles are epic with the powers and scale, there are no bugs which i have encountered and deffinatly none now. The game is a bargin buy 3 years on and still has an active multiplayer community and doesnt feel like a dated game.