Lord of the Rings Online - Early Impressions @ 1Up, Kotaku

A pair of Lord of the Rings Online early impressions can be found at 1Up and Kotaku, both with the same "I'm dubious but..." approach.  Here's a bit from Jeff Green's very informal piece at 1Up:

But having raised all these questions, lemme now say this: I have played Lord of the Rings Online for the better part of the weekend--and it is winning me over. I am not that far yet. It is early. I have taken an Elf Champion, Morahn, to level 7, while my new "main", the Hobbit Hunter Blubbo, is now level 8. There is a long way to go. I have only been out of the newbie zone with Blubbo for a little bit now. But after a slow start in that newbie zone (you really gotta hang in there past that stuff), I am finding it oddly compelling in that "OMG I really am in Middle-Earth!" way. Yes, 32 years after first reading Tolkien, I am now a Hobbit. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Blubbo [...]

...and from Kotaku:

Full disclosure: I'm about fed up with all massively multiplayer online games in their current state. I think that, for the most part, they are derivative crap which essentially just wraps the same old ideas, gameplay and contrivances with a fancy new IP.

Having said that, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadow of Angmar is quite palatable. I'm sure tons of people are going to pick it up and say it's World of Warcraft or Guild Wars with a Lord of the Rings flavor, but you could say WoW didn't do much in the way of innovation either.