I played the Demo way back when.

It seemed pretty cool. The music was the one from the movies and the game was basically Warcraft 3 but set in Middle Earth.

I'd pick up the game and expansion if I didn't have a backlog of 12+ games.

 

I played it some, but the siege AI wasn't very impressive so it was short lived. (Though I did think the special abilities were kinda cool)

If you are really just looking for a LOTR game then it serves it's purpose and then some, but I am into the realistic simulation games like those from the "Total War" series.

I have been playing quite a bit of Medieval 2: Total War using a community mod called "Stainless Steel". They managed to make the physics so realistic that arrow barrages & calvary charges into infantry groups will make you cringe. The Total War games also give a pretty cool campaign map feature similar to that of Civilizations, and allows you to either simulate or control directly every battle. Think Risk + Civilizations + RTS...its addictive. =p