To its credit, the Final Fantasy-style combat structure does manage to engage the player for the first couple of realms, but it all goes downhill in a hurry after that. They killed the Command & Conquer franchise with this attitude, and it looks as if they intend to milk every last drop from The Lord Of The Rings without changing it one little bit. Unfortunately, EA Games has long had the attitude of 'who cares if it is good? It has Brand X on it, it will sell!'. This is especially sad, given that the game had so much potential to be more. In other words, the game is based around unbalanced play, annoying repetition, an over-reliance on the power of recognition, and little else.
