This game is the best RPG I've played since FFX.
The other thing graphics-wise that really impressed me was the fact that EVERY piece of armor or weaponry in the game ,when equipped, actually appears on your model in real-time. I always hated in other RPG's when you would just get a picture of new armor and they would tell you your armor value went up,but your character still looked exactly the same. This may sound like a small deal,but it really makes you actually look forward to leveling up and getting new armor.
The dialogue is very good. Ian Mckellen seems to be the only relic from the actual trilogy,but he does a great job doing Gandalf once again here. He is basically the narrator of the story,which involves an all new cast, whose quest parallels that of the Fellowship, for the most part. Surprisingly, I didn;t hate this made-for-game cast (even though they are totally stereotyped after the actual Fellowship) and actually thought they were pretty cool. I especially thought the lead character, Berethor, should have been in the movies, as he stands up along with Aragorn and Eomer as my favorite characters in the Lord Of The Rings.
The game is long,I've been playing it for 12 hours and apparently I'm only 34 percent done. But unlike most RPG's that fill the game with crap sidequests and backtracking to fill it to one million hours of "gameplay" ,
this game never gets tired,and a lot of the locations,especially the awesome recreations of locales from the movies, will make you actually want to look around and take in the scenery. There were quite a few times that I found myself staring around, only to be thrown into a random battle. Which by the way are much better implemented here,as the Eye Of Sauron gets redder and brighter ,telling you when you're about to be thrown into battle. This greatly helps you prepare your characters for the upcoming battle.
All in all,this game does what i wanted it to. It has great graphics,it's fun for someone who is not totally into the LOTR movies, and especially fun for those who are. I highly recommend it to RPG fans (especially those of Final Fantasy as the game is very reminiscent of that series) and especially fans of both RPGs and LOTR.