It's obvious that this game is aimed almost entirely at fans of the LOTR. It focuses on storyline a great deal, considering its massive multiplayer format. This is a great leg up over other popular titles, like World of Warcraft, where more focus is on grinding for "uber" loot than progressing the story. In-game cinematics and NPC interaction are abundant and meaningful, with storyline-based missions entwining you with the fellowship's travels toward the fires of Mordor.
Player interaction is held tight through the forming of your own "fellowships" that allow you to join forces with up to five other players for the purpose of completing difficult missions, killing elite bosses like mountain trolls, or to just socialize together and have fun while playing. Playing the same role as in other massive multiplayer games, "kinships" can be created to unite dozens or even hundreds of players together in a guild environment.
The bad news: Those of you who enjoy lurking in the bushes and ambushing poor unsuspecting noobs delivering a hot pie to Molly Hodgewallow will be sorely disappointed. That is, there are no open player-versus-player (PVP) shenanigans to be found (you can almost hear the pie-wielding noobites cheering).
Worse, as a player, you can choose to be any of four races of the light: Man, Elf, Hobbit, Dwarf, but that's it; no Orc, Troll, Goblin or Uruk-hai to be had. Mind you, there is a player-verses-monster player mode available in restricted areas where you can take control of an otherwise non-playable character and batter the two-shoes-of-goodiness out of man and dwarf alike, but the lack of controllable battle options between Tolkien's good guys and bad guys puts a rather dark black mark on the likeability of the game -- for more aggressive players, anyway.
For those unfamiliar with massive multiplayer online (MMO) games, there can be some unsuspected costs. First, there's the purchase of the game -- about $50 -- then there's a monthly fee to play, averaging about $15/month, depending on contract (first month's free, to get you hooked, like crack, and there's even a $300 "lifetime" subscription). Though that can add up to a lot of money over time, it's typical of MMO games; profitable, sure, but a lot of that money goes towards better server hardware, software updates, and content updates, all netting literally hundreds and hundreds of hours of uninterrupted gameplay, much of it "new" even after the boxed copy gets old. This also means that each retail copy installation becomes linked with the user's game account, so you there won't be any "used" copies for sale.
All told, Middle Earth fans can rejoice (bush-dwelling ambushers be wary), Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is a great buy, brand new.
- TIP: If you're wary and want to try Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar before you commit to buying it, find someone who has bought it and use their "buddy account," which nets you a free ten day trial.
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