Ok, some good and bad points.

+ The storyline gives you the chance to go off and fight battles, or, in the case of the Fellowship, follow movie events.

- On skirmish mode you do get the "build and attack, lose, build and attack again" gameplay, defeats in skirmishes don't really cripple you.

+ On the other hand, you are forced to build large armies to win, if you don't you can get a beating quite easily and vice versa.

- Hero's can be, at times, over powered.

+ The hero's are a nice feature, its always fun to soar through the air with the Naxgul, it is a bit daft that neither Eomer or Theoden actually ride horses but thats nitpicking.

- It takes a bit before you military machine gets going in an interesting way, you start off with, as in TW, your base and essentially crappy units.

+If your patient you can unlock some pretty nice looking units, graphic wise they are very good. Mumakil look great, the knights of Gondor are good too, basically, if you play longer, your rewarded more and more through the unlocking of new units.

- It doesn't follow the book

+ Who cares? Its a game, its fun because of what it does include so ignore what it doesn't include.

- It does play and look like C&C Generals combined with Warcraft III

+ Both of those are good games, it does pull off what its trying to do effectively.

- If you hate the movie you WILL hate this game.

+ If you are grown up enough not to spit your dummy out becuase PJ took some creative license in what he did, you will enjoy this game.

- If the game doesn't hook you quickly the first couple of plays, don't expect it to ever do this.

+ It's quite addictive if you've got time to play it properly.

Thats my opinions anyway.