Playability: 3.6
The stronger point of this scenairo, this would certainly be good fun to play on multiplayer... Depending on who you are. The scenairo vaugely depicts Middle Earth and it's inhabitants, from elves to goblins.
First off, each civ is put in their own special little location, with some agitations in the setup that make it difficult to build where you want to. But anyway, the game is based like this--The good civs in middle earth (humans, elves etc.) and the bad civs (Mordor etc.) comptete against each other on a time limit for the best score. Pretty interesting concept and makes for some interesting play. I'd have to admit that it is interesting going from place to place, making attempts to conquer goblins or orcs.. Sort of interesting. Although this game had it's own flaws in play, it's still pretty fun.
Balance: 2.8
Not really all too bad, but it seems to work like this-The good civs have a big advantage score-wise at the begining of the game. It evens out a bit with some little nicks on the map (as you'll see) but truly, players should have been given a more even start. You could play it off as a challenge if you want, but otherwise, it's not what most people would be looking for.
Creativity: 3.4
The map is fairly bland, aswell is there is no story (frankly doesn't need one) but the gameplay is quite interesting and would certainly be a blast in MP. 2 teams competing against each other... Good vs. Evil type thing. Also, while the map isn't all that good, it is a defenite change from a random one. O.K.
Map Design: 2.5
Most of this was grass and plain... With a few differences. Due to lag in MP (and this one has 8 players) im not going to bother you too much about this, but this certainly could have been better... There really isn't a whole lot of detail, and most things are really quite plain. Spending more time here would be the solution.
Story/Instructions: 3
It's LotR, so it really doesn't need a story. Otherwise, there was some instructions, so I'll keep this at a 3, mostly to round out the final score. No bitmap though...
Additional Comments:It's O.K. If you're an LotR fan go ahead and download this. If your not, decide for yourself.