I appreciate that they tried to tell their own story within the existing world. I don't want to see LotR become a static, dead thing. A lot of their choices... were... uh... Sexy Shelob? wth? But I appreciate that they tried. The way they portrayed the Orcs was just gorgeous storytelling. Every single one of them is an irredeemably evil monster but they're all dripping with charisma, character, humor, weirdness. The first time a Troubadour Orc showed up to sing a diss track and beat me to death with a lute I couldn't stop laughing. It was so much better of a depiction of orcs than I've ever seen anywhere else. They understood and accepted that Tolkien's Orcs were smart. Industrious. Organized. Mordor had the strongest industrial and agricultural base in Middle Earth during the War of the Ring and the game reflects that. The Orcs weren't mindless brutes and only barely disguised racial slurs, and the game reflects that.

They had a lot of story beats that absolutely missed, but I really liked a lot of what they did. The idea of Celebrimbor building a final ring in secret to try to contest with Sauron was a very interesting idea and it ties in thematically with the existing story of the Rings; There is only one ruling Ring and Sauron is it's master. Celebrimbor's attempt to contest with Sauron using Sauron's own methods was doomed to fail. While the Three were created to protect and preserve Celebrimbor's ring was built to dominate and enslave, and so was doomed to failure according to the rules of Tolkien's world; You cannot defeat the enemy by the enemy's methods.

So, it's a mixed bag, but I like a lot of what they did and I do appreciate that they tried, and in some ways succeeded, to make Arda larger and stranger in ways that understood much of what Tolkien was saying.

The Shadow of War is less about the dead family, I don't even remember if they talk about that. But nothing justify Shelob as hot brunette girl.