For most Lord of The Rings fans this will be a treat, but will look like horse muck to most RPG fans.
Of course just because the trilogy ends doesn't mean the story has too, The Third Age is a simple story of basically a second fellowship who are all ridiculously similar to the first. The point of the second fellowship is to follow the first fellowship as reinforcements in case for instance Frodo was killed and someone else needed to carry the Ring. The story fits alongside it well despite how unimaginative it is.
The battle system is very VERY similar to the Final Fantasy Series, turn based attacks with the control of three heroes, each with magic, potions and regular attacks. The battle sequences make the game really, if it was combat like in "The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers Game" then the game would have been a complete flop. Many of the attacks and magic look very good, they show their power. The characters and environments are very detailed for this stage of the Xbox as it was soon coming to an end (with the birth of the 360). The battle sequences never seemed overly rewarding unless they went on for about 10 minutes... but it was only rewarding because you were glad it was over as it was boring you to death. You only gained particular amounts of XP and maybe a couple of useful items but nothing of importance.
When your not fighting the evil of middle earth you explore the lands in adventure mode, they are very familiar as you are following in the footsteps of the Fellowship, you go through Khazad-Duhm, Gondor even in the mines of Moria to fight the Watcher in the Water.
They incorporate key characters with your Fellowship in the game such as Gandalf & Legolas. You aid Gandalf in the fight against the Balrog just to watch him "die" again anyway.
The game like the majority of the other games in the LOTR series use the Original Soundtrack from the films which i think personally is a nice touch as the soundtrack from the LOTR series is rather epic.
Character customisation is good, this was one of the only RPG elements of the game which was upgrading your characters... though it didn't really leave you with much choice, the more you progressed through the game the better weapons and armour you got, and tougher enemies appeared so you are pretty much even matched through the entire game and the difficulty doesn't ever really change... maybe from easy to medium when it comes to boss fights but these are made to be more difficult that the normal battles obviously.
I enjoyed playing through the game but its not a game that you would instantely think about playing twice as it claims to be an RPG. There is no element in the game that allows you to stop off at towns to restock on supplies or buy new weapons, there are no major side quests, and the majority of missions you are set on end with a larger scale battle. The game was simple, i would suggest it to anyone who has some interest in LOTR and fancies playing a very easy RPG (If thats what you want to call it).