More improved and more fun to play.
The game also has more races to pick and fight with such as for the good side elves and dwarfs......ya I love to fight big elephants with little short guys with axes. The evil also gets gobins as its new side kick.
Each side has new the ability to build walls and gates and other objects to wait the war. Also each side has the ability to get special skills such as for example calling in the eagles to fight those evil air units that we all hate. Also both sides get the chance to get the ring....yes the ring and use its power to your advantage but watch out the enemy can do the same and beat you down with the ring if they get it first.
The single has been done nicely adding a nice story to it and filling in the holes from the movies such as did the elves ever get attacked? And how did the dwarfs lose their home etc. The game also has new war of the ring mode which allows you to pick your side and where to start on the map and to play an all out conquest of your choosing either have it where you have to take over the land or have it where you have to take the special places such as helms deep....The game also introduces custom heros which you can make and use but only on war of the rings or skimirsh, not sure about single player but then again i haven't beaten the game yet....
The downfall is the game doesn't let you build walls that allows you to place men on them such as archers to help defend your base...There are some others such as no build limit .....we all hate having small armies....not like rome where you can build an army of a million men and battle to the death with them all but aleast something that will have a large scale battle allowing all units to come to play instead of a small hand full to fit the limit.
The limit has been increased though for units and has you building farms and other things to increase it so far 1000 is the max i have seen. But then again mods will come to play and fix this.
Overall GREAT GAME AND MAKES YOU WANT TO PLAY MORE. If you have part 1 then get this, and if your just looking for some fun RTS then this a game you should try and hope to enjoy because i love it.