Despite the problems with monetization upon the games launch, and the rough launch week it had. The current version of the game is a very good experience. Heavily recommend for anyone who loves action adventure games.

8/10 from me.

The plot continues from where the last game left off. Talion just crafted the "new ring" to combat Sauron, as thus he, Celebrimbor, Shelob, and a myriad of other characters go on your quest to conquer Middle-Earth from Sauron.

Game introduces several new systems in the main game alone. With the new ring Talion can "dominate" normal orcs, and high ranking captain orcs to have them serve him and assist him in his conquest of the several different regions. You can also train, upgrade, level up, and have your orcs engage in a variety of activities such as the pit-fight, or even have some of them be spies for you to backstab a Warchief for you to make it easier for you to finish them off. There's of course your usual skill tree this time a lot more versatile offering a lot of unique approaches to any situation. There's a fair bit more, but that's the rough idea.

I mean yeah, graphics are beautiful. Even now in 2023 the game still holds up and looks really good, genuinely beautiful and amazing. There are different regions that you end up exploring during Talion's quest for conquest, and each region looks unique and diverse with different weather.

Playing the game feels good, countering attacks and finishing enemies off in beautiful epic ways such as executions and a variety of special skills / attacks if you've unlocked them. The variety of approaches you can have due to all of your abilities to any situation makes the gameplay always feel unique and refreshing, especially as the high ranking orcs will adapt to your playstyle, so you have to constantly change your approach.

You can also dominate and ride a variety of mounts to even further change how the game is played. Although that all being said the game does have a few bugs. You can glitch into buildings or the terrain itself, however rare it does / did happen, so it's not a 100% perfectly polished game, but it is excusable due to the absolute size of this game's world and all of the content it has.

Game has 2 story expansions, pretty cool.