Love It Or Hate It, The Quality Is There
A lot of the design decisions in this game are **subtle** (a word most of the angry WoW Kiddies posting here can't even spell, let alone understand), but the subtleties work to evoke a fantasy game-universe that actually makes sense, and has a genuine story behind it.
On the downside, there are a LOT of "fetch quests" in this game, but I find the writing is so good, that I never find them grinding or arbitrary. You actually have to **read** the quest text most of the time (again, the emphasis is on storytelling) which is likely another reason the WoW Kiddies hate it so vocally.
Some have complained about lack of content, but I have to laugh. The game is not even a month old as I write this. How long have WoW and the other major fantasy MMO games been out? How much content did WoW and the rest actually have at launch? I remember. Please.
New free content, including the new area of Evendim, is being added this month (June 07) along with the game's first "raid". This is an MMORPG, content gets added as it's ready.
As above, if all you want is a standard fantasy MMORPG in a Tolkien T-shirt, you'll probably hate this game, and you know what? That's fine. If all you want is to play an `eeeeevil badazzz "Ooruk Hi" [sic] and budtchur hobbitz', go back to WoW before your parents discover you're up past your bedtime on a school night, and that you've swiped their credit card -- again.
If you want to try a fantasy adventure MMORPG that works to capture the spirit of Tolkien's Middle-Earth and its story, this is a good place to start.
Never mind the WoW Kiddies, once their free-month-with-purchase is up, they'll all be gone. As dominus_tecum said in his review, the people who rant about how much they hate this game are not people you want to play with, anyway ...
Ultimately, this is a game you have to try for yourself to make a judgement call on; it has a very distinct "flavor" to it, and it's not trying to be all things to all people. Only **you** can decide if it's what you want.
But, love it or hate it, the quality and care in the game design is there, for those with eyes to see.