Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is an action role-playing video game released in 2017 developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. A sequel to 2014's Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, the game takes place between the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings while continuing the story of the deceased ranger Talion and the spirit of elf-lord Celebrimbor as they escalate their war against the forces of darkness.

Plot
Determined to avenge his family and banish darkness from Middle Earth, Talion and Celebrimbor create a new ring of power, on that is pure, and set out on a full-scale war against Sauron and his armies.

Why it Rocks

 * 1) The nemesis system, which was easily one of the best features of the previous game, is revamped and improved even further to make the world feel very much alive. It keeps plenty of features like death threats, warchiefs with special abilities, orcs fighting each other, allowing the player to send them on missions against each other and the like, but it also adds in plenty of things like having your captains get captured and need rescuing, chase missions, overlords who control forts and by extension regions, and even blood brothers who will defend or avenge each other against you. You can also control enemies once again, but you can also shame them to decrease their level and some may end up betraying you, making it unpredictable.
 * 2) Amazing graphics that really bring Middle-Earth to life with gorgeous amounts of detail and lots of variety in it's scenery like the architecture of Minas Ithil and the hellish landscape of Gorgoroth juxtaposed with the lush nature of Nurnen.
 * 3) You have not one, not two, but FIVE large areas to explore, each with their own layout and army to provide a very dynamic environment.
 * 4) An interesting story that continues and concludes the saga established by it's predecessor, only with higher stakes as you're quite literally fighting for the salvation of all life on Middle-Earth, and it takes many interesting divergences from what's expected by having characters who are on the side of light clash over their beliefs and keeping the tension going by having the fact that the Nazgul are trying to turn Talion into one of them and erase everything he's done.
 * 5) The boss fights, which were mostly mediocre in the previous game, are much more fun in this one, almost none have any quick time events and they all have different move sets and abilities that you must work against. A particular standout is about a third of the way through the game where you battle ALL 9 NAZGUL AT ONCE (it might sound frustrating, but it's not at all as the difficulty is fair and the fight is fast-paced).
 * 6) Great voice acting, once again, from it's returning cast.
 * 7) The gameplay, while similar to it's predecessor, thankfully has plenty of new additions and also gives you certain abilities from the predecessor right off the bat as opposed to having you slog through exhausting missions in order to achieve them for the most part. Some new abilities also include the double jump which is highly effective, poisoning grog barrels from a distance, and the ability to raise the dead.
 * 8) Great soundtrack that faithfully adheres to the movies.
 * 9) A new system where you can launch a siege against a fort in order to conquer the region and make your job much easier. You must use the captains you've recruited to build a sufficient army and can even preemptively defeat the warchiefs in order to disable certain defenses and the fort in general. Once you capture the victory points, you must then kill the overlord in order to control the fort which will also put your forces around the entire area. You also need to have sufficient defenses for the fortress as losing it will cause you to lose all the added benefits as well as your own overlord being captured.
 * 10) You can now not only ride caragors, but also Graugs (basically giants) and even Drakes (dragons).
 * 11) A very interesting mission structure with plenty of missions that are optional and give good benefits while there's also a non-linear way to get through the story as it goes along as you can choose to pursue any mission you want.
 * 12) The main campaign alone is about twice as long as it's predecessor.
 * 13) A satisfying end to the story where, though Talion is eventually corrupted by Isildur's ring and turned into a Nazgul, thereby starting the war in Middle-Earth, the One Ring is destroyed and all of them along with it, allowing Talion to go to paradise in death, abandon all his weapons, and have a chance to reunite with his family and all other who died.
 * 14) Plenty of DLC that adds more parts to the story that weren't explained in the main campaign.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some obvious filler, especially after act III which is pretty much where you're pretty much just defending your forts as you've already defeated all the main villains and it relies on Talion simply trying to make Minas Morgul a containment area for Mordor while also being slowly corrupted by Isildur's ring.
 * 2) Some characters are changed from their original counterparts, especially Shelob who's now a mostly sentient demon who actively tries to help you. Celebrimbor also went pretty stone cold by this sequel, which even Talion notices.
 * 3) The game came with microtransactions and loot boxes, but luckily, both are optional and can be avoided entirely if you don't use the online features (which aren't required in the campaign).
 * 4) Like it's predecessor, it can get repetitive after a while despite the improvements.