Guardians of Middle-Earth Review

I cannot stress enough that you should NOT buy this game.

The actual gameplay is pretty good, for a console MOBA it functions mechanically quite well, but you'll never see it. When you very rarely do get a workable game going, it in no way makes up for how completely and utterly broken everything else is.

The matchmaking process takes on average between 10 and 20 minutes for a game to start (I have no idea where they get the 'average wait time' that's displayed while searching for matches, but it's completely wrong). When you're finally paired with 9 other people, 9 times out of 10 someone will drop during the character selection process which often causes the game to hang on that screen, unable to proceed into the match. If you quit out at this point to try again you'll be locked out of matchmaking.

If you do manage to get a game started, there will often be some lag. Sometimes it will be manageable and only cause a constant annoying stuttering until people start inevitable disconnecting/quitting, but most times it will be a crippling slideshow. Even if you're lucky enough to get a game without lag, without a doubt you'll have at least one person disconnect during a game (not kicked, just plain be dropped from the game), running the risk of causing the game to hang in an unrecoverable state of trying to resync until you're forced to quit, at which point you'll once again be locked out of matchmaking. This is only if you don't have someone outright ragequit during a game, often causing a cascade of everyone else quitting. Now you're back to waiting another 15+ minutes for a game once your lockout clears.

 The game has been plagued with game breaking problems since it launched, and none of them have been acknowledged or addressed. They have however gone ahead and created/released an entire separate game mode, and close to 10 characters to buy along with an entire map re-skin. Lovely.

In addition to this, apparently Xbox versions have been plagued with a glitch where users will be forced into 'gold mode', essentially a trial version with no dlc, no updates, and can only play with other users that are in gold mode as well.

Don't waste your money on this, and don't support developers that care much more about milking money out of you than providing a product they can be proud of.

for a console MOBA,  don't think the actual game part of this game could be done any better.

that being said..

 don't buy this game.  don't play it with a lot of high expectations either.  the terrible network is entirely game-breaking.  you will not be able to get a decent game +75% of the time.  people leave every single game, which might not be that big of a deal to you, but when they do, there's a 50/50 chance it will crash the entire game for everyone.  you will spend an entire evening waiting 10-15 minutes for a game that goes for a few minutes til the first person gets killed and decides to leave, either crashing the game or triggering a cascade of everyone leaving.  over 50% of the time someone lags out in the first 10 seconds.  want to just play with your friends?  well, you can make a party so the network can haphazardly place you in a game that may or may not have more than 1 slot in it, separating you from your party, or putting you on opposite teams.  that might be ok, but you have to wait til the game starts to actually see the names of the people on the other team, then oops they're actually not in the game at all, causing even more people to leave games that already started.  oh and you know that person who just tower dives over and over?  wellp, nothin you can do about it, no voting system.  good thing you waited 15 minutes for a game!  i could go on.  but i have to go throw up.

Anyone on Playstation Plus in Europe will get this game in January for free so save your cash!!!!!!!! I am :)

Personally, for the price tag this game is far and away better than a 7.0.  Connection issues have been a problem, but to me the map complaint is like complaining about only having one map in a sports game.  It's just a playing field upon which a different game takes place every time.

Although sometimes the server does not help, and an awesome game for PC, with some fights fast and doing complicated, becomes an enjoyable game in my eyes.

see more at: http://www.yesjogosonline.com/

Glad they tried something else, but I think it's ridiculous how much they try to milk Tolkien's books. Every movie is released with a game, this time around it was only one book but they still found a way to split it into three movies/games. 

i was really looking forward to this game but since there isnt gonna be a DVD release for the xbox in the netherlands screw them ill just play some more LoL

I must be getting out of touch, I have NO idea what a MOBA is.

I saw this on Giant Bomb; looks great!  The familiar Lord of the Rings trappings are a great way to introduce me to an unfamiliar genre, and the gameplay itself looks really deep.  I need to buy this when I get some money.

this game is awesome i'm having a lot of fun playing it, as soon as more people start playing it will kick off

Sure there are only two maps but if more people start playing this game, it can easily become addicting.

Never had a laggy match.  Although the matchmaking does take forever!