Middle-earth: Shadow of War Reviews

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is ranked in the 89th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Fextralife
Languard
Top Critic
7 / 10
Oct 27, 2017

At the end of the day, the big question is: Did I have fun? Yes, yes I did. I had fun killing the orcs, I loved the interactions with the story orcs, and when the combat behaves itself I enjoy the siege battles. The frustration isn't enough to make me glad it's over, and I'm looking forward to the additional story content coming in later. So with that, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find that corpse-loving orc again and kill it. With fire. And poison. And curse.

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3.5 / 5.0
Oct 14, 2017

Middle-earth: Shadow of War aims for the spectacle of the films, but falls short with a directionless, lore-breaking campaign.

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7 / 10.0
Oct 4, 2017

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel perfect for the fans of the original game and fans of repetitive gameplay. They’ll love this game but they won’t be surprised at all. The combat system is really cool, the story is okay (albeit too long) but all in all Monolith took a step back as if afraid to do something new.

Review in Polish | Read full review

7 / 10.0
Oct 5, 2017

Lord of the Rings fans will eat this up, as will those who like to delve into a game world and walk away, hours and hours later, without ever coming closer to completion of a main quest mission. If you can ignore all the glitches and bugs, this game is for you.

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7 / 10
Oct 5, 2017

Shadow of War offer probably one of the most interesting open world system. Very deep and intelligent,it's a true living world around us and nemesis system is still brillant. Sadly we have still some issues from the first game, like muddles combats and crazy difficulty at some moments. Also a fan of Tolkien can find lot of mistakes in the game...

Review in French | Read full review

GameMAG
xtr
Top Critic
7 / 10
Nov 4, 2017

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is not a bad game, but it becomes repetitive and boring in the process. You still can have fun, but we recommend short playing sessions.

Review in Russian | Read full review

Oct 20, 2017

If you enjoyed Shadow of Mordor, you'll also enjoy Shadow of War, but if you feel fatigued as I do from this type of formulaic open world game, Shadow of War amplifies the issues with the genre rather than improves upon them.

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7 / 10
Oct 21, 2017
Shadow of War Angry Review video thumbnail
7 / 10.0
Oct 17, 2017

Monolith has doubled down on what made the original a surprise hit but hasn't addressed its flaws

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7 / 10.0
Oct 11, 2017

Middle-earth: Shadow of War has a lot of fluff that attempts to sabotage it, but the game succeeds in its effort to make its world worth roaming around and killing things in. Although I wasn't enthralled by the silly story beats that try to dance around telling an actual epic and somber tale, the ability to create my own stories with an expanded level of gameplay was more than sufficient to call this a step up.

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7 / 10
Oct 5, 2017

The follow-up to Shadow of Mordor is bigger in scope, but not always better than its predecessor.

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Oct 9, 2017
Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Easy Allies Review video thumbnail
Andy Kelly
Top Critic
73 / 100
Oct 5, 2017

The nemesis system shines in this unwieldy, bloated, and occasionally magnificent fantasy epic.

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7.5 / 10.0
Oct 26, 2017

Middle-earth: Shadow of War plays to the strength of its predecessor by doubling down on the Nemesis System. In a lot of ways, this works in the game’s favor. Creating rivalries and forced companionship out of the wildly eccentric hordes under Sauron is an absolute joy. Whether Talion is attacking strongholds or defending his own, these personalities punctuate the action. The height of this achievement quickly reveals the areas of Shadow of War that have fallen short, such as the narrative that dips into a monotonous grind and the overly cluttered systems present in the menus. Still, Shadow of War‘s attention builds itself around the Nemesis backbone and it succeeds more than it fails by doing so for the majority of this adventure.

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75 / 100
Oct 24, 2017

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War is a great expansion, built on the foundation of it's predecessor. But still, it's not a prefect product. Shadow of war is an undeniably messy experience. While the core mechanics, specially the nemesis system are fun and solid, the whole game feels sloppy and the adventure is forgettable.

Review in Persian | Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Nov 2, 2017

Endgame aside, Shadow of War hits the right marks, and is worth another run through the Black Gate.

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7.5 / 10.0
Oct 4, 2017

The Shadow of War offers a solid gameplay, a compelling concept and a much more varied setting than the previous episode, with excellent production values and an awesome soundtrack. The sequel is bigger, better and stronger, but somehow caged in a repetitive framework. The game is full of good ideas and potential, that cannot be truly fulfilled due to a storytelling without personality and a huge but boring endgame.

Review in Italian | Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Oct 5, 2017

If you can get past the microtransactions, Shadow Wars seems set to provide a much meatier extended playtime than Shadow of Mordor ever offered. But more than anything, that's my biggest disappointment with Middle-earth: Shadow of War: Everything about it seems to come with a caveat, some small annoyance or two that you need to dig past to get to the still-very-fun game underneath. The Nemesis System is still a wonder that has yet to be replicated. The movement and combat are thrilling.

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77%
Oct 15, 2017

Shadow of War is like someone telling you a really exciting story, but they're so indulged in it that they trip over their words and you end up confused and you can't grasp the great magnitude of the adventure in their brain. Muddled but ultimately satisfying and fun, this is a gorgeous Orc pancake with a little too much sickly syrup.

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7.8 / 10.0
Oct 29, 2017

Monolith’s Shadow of War is mostly sacrificed by gaming world’s enormous expectations. However, WB Games’ hyping up the game was also big enough to create this not so good atmosphere. Middle Earth: Shadow of War didn’t make it to satisfy its players the way it should’ve done. Yet it’s still an entertaining and elegant piece of work which is undoubtedly attractive for almost all of the fans of action-roleplaying games. Therefore, In spite of its flaws, Shadow of War is recommended to everyone.

Review in Persian | Read full review