Calling all riders of Rohan - Is Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth worth your time?

What happens when you bring hero collecting, RPG gameplay, and Lord of the Rings all together in one bag? You get Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth. If you're a fan of the series like me, you've been waiting for the next Lord of the Rings release for a while. But is it reflective of Tolkien's inspiring work? With its less-than-impressive visuals, aggressive monetization, and repetitive gameplay Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth left much to be desired.

For starters, Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth immediately stood out on its visuals alone. No... I don't really mean that in a good way. If you take games like Wuthering Waves, Genshin Impact, or Ni no Kuni: Crossworlds, it's easy to see how far the graphics in mobile gaming have come, but in Heroes of Middle-Earth, I felt like I was playing something outdated and I don't think that was done intentionally.

The graphics could've been forgiven, but after getting through the first chapters of the light campaign, the gameplay became repetitive. I put the battles on auto to gain enough loot to upgrade my heroes and their gear tiers. Which, admittedly, was fun until it started getting old, and I wanted more to do.

The selling point is the cooperative battles,  but goodies like the arena aren't available until LVL 20. In Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth, I liked mixing and matching heroes and even orcs and making different teams, but unfortunately, it never felt anything other than similar games in the genre. This could have been any game with a Lord of the Rings skin on it.

Finally, the monetization was aggressive. I didn't have to PTW in my playthrough. Still, undoubtedly better gear and higher stared characters become more necessary in the later chapters. That being said, the cheapest gem package I could buy to get hero shards for new characters was $5.00! That's $5 of my hard-earned bucks without a guarantee of getting a high-ranked character.

All in all, there will need to be a lot of improvements before I return to the lands of Middle-earth. Cast this one into the fire!