Apparently, The Bright Lord sucks. Hard.

[Aideux]

Hmm... just read some pretty abysmal reviews from a wide variety of reviewers, so I might not even waste my time with it. Pretty disappointing how poor the season pass content was for such an amazing game. I was hoping that The Bright Lord would have at least post-campaign gameplay (an instance which would make me more than happy to check the DLC out) but it looks like it resets upon completion, so you really don't have any time to explore Shadow of Mordor as Calebrimbor and what made it so amazing to begin with. That's too bad, becuase I was really looking forward to playing the game again, but I guess that won't be happening.

[Star]

i just tried the bright lord dlc since i had the season pass. i think its great u can now summon orcs :D awesssome :D and war machines :D

[hinti21]

I am generally disappointed in the DLCs mainly because they are not tied into the main campaign. I left some skills out so I would have the chance to level them up while playing the DLCs...well, thats not how it works. Why the ♥♥♥♥ would they give you a skilled out character??

[Roderick]

Originally posted by Star:

i just tried the bright lord dlc since i had the season pass. i think its great u can now summon orcs :D awesssome :D and war machines :D

What? I just finished it. Had no use of war machines. I just had to defend two and to destroy two immobile, useless catapults.
I summoned orcs just for fun, wouldn't have noticed a difference if not. And What? 5 Orcs to summon? Hell there is an AMRY and I am able to summon FIVE of em?
Realy disapointing.

[HooksGURU]

Yeah, for something that contains anything to do with the Lord of the Rings franchise it was a complete shortcoming to me. Very unoriginal and empty. Hell, Evolve is more interesting to me, and that is the first big dissapointment for me of this new year. I'm either getting more difficult to please, or I just expect more out of games given the fact it is now 2015. I feel it the later mentioned.

[DarkCat]

The gameplay changes are pretty interesting, imo. Getting rid of focus? Pretty brutal. No stun on jumping across an orc is also a change that is hard to adjust for me but a nice challenge. Also orcs tend to block your hits way more, really one of their kind those war-driven old-school orcs. The Ring mechanic is one big piece of overdrive I'll probably avoid using if I want a challenge later on but man, the screenshot opportunities go insane.

The subtle animation changes were nice to see. Also they did a really well job in adding new punch lines, new uruk character styles altogether. I like that they thought about Mt. Doom throwing ashes around at that time around and changing the appearance of the orcs to be more geared towards war. I love gathering more background around the game and its setting.

I like the mini-campaign structure. It's like choosing a game mode of your favor and changing it now and then can really spice up your otherwise static experience. Hell, after Lord of the Hunt released, changing around between the DLC and main game is a thing for me, as I sometimes like me some revenge mission (which don't have an impact on your world anyway) and sometimes I like me some monster riding. I'll certainly add this DLC to my rotation as playing Celembrimbor really goes unique gameplay again.

And ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I swear that those Captains are more likely to spawn now around you if you fight another one. I had to use the new features basically just to survive the situations given, granted that I avoid using anything above white runes.

I encountered some issues with executing some finishing moves bound to the same buttons as rolling I haven't really before. Might have been that I was just not using it that frequently before but dunno. I had issues adjusting to the new shooting controls.

Concluding, the DLC is worth it for me, the Season Pass was worth it for me at this point as I liked Lord of the Hunt aswell. I don't need a new map, give me some great gameplay alterations over some map I explore in an hour anyway. I am not as dillusional to expect a DLC to have Addon size of new content. Nomenclature sure but indicating enough anyway, no PR guy would call their gigantic content update just a DLC.

[Mu'Ammar of Carthus]

Is that true that you can't kill Warchiefs, only brand them?

[Emilio]

Originally posted by The Bat:

Is that true that you can't kill Warchiefs, only brand them?

Yep.

[Kyle]

They flat out took away abilities to try to make it harder, instead of giving a better challenge. It's also horribly ugly compared to the normal game. I even liked Lord of the Hunt, this isn't very good.

[Mu'Ammar of Carthus]

Originally posted by Emilio:

Originally posted by The Bat:

Is that true that you can't kill Warchiefs, only brand them?

Yep.

Pff, lame.

Originally posted by Gray:

They flat out took away abilities to try to make it harder, instead of giving a better challenge.

How so?

[nekov4ego]

I never care about reviews. Find some video of the first 15 minutes or so and decide for yourself. I'm pretty happy with this DLC, it definitely doesn't suck in my book.

[Compy439]

Well, Celebrimbor is not a wraith yet so, you don't get focus, the trade off is that your arrows do max damage. Also it feels as if Celibrimbor attacks faster.

[Kyle]

Originally posted by The Bat:

How so?

They took out the ability to be able to be hit once and not drop a combo, they took out the abolity to do 2 finisher with one charge, and since the ring is your own special move now you can't use all your charged specials in the same fight. I'm not sure how, "how" was even a question? Haha, It nothing bothering you like it bothered me is a different story obviously.

I know you were to powerful before, but it's just bad practise feeling weaker in this DLC, instead of the enemy feeling stronger.

My season pass still felt worth it personally, but not for this.

[Mu'Ammar of Carthus]

Originally posted by Compy439:

Well, Celebrimbor is not a wraith yet so, you don't get focus, the trade off is that your arrows do max damage. Also it feels as if Celibrimbor attacks faster.

Originally posted by Gray:

Originally posted by The Bat:

How so?

They took out the ability to be able to be hit once and not drop a combo, they took out the abolity to do 2 finisher with one charge, and since the ring is your own special move now you can't use all your charged specials in the same fight. I'm not sure how, "how" was even a question? Haha, It nothing bothering you like it bothered me is a different story obviously.

I know you were to powerful before, but it's just bad practise feeling weaker in this DLC, instead of the enemy feeling stronger.

My season pass still felt worth it personally, but not for this.

Ooooh, I misunderstood.
I thought you meant that they took away the possibility to make the game harder for yourself.
Which I do in like every game, there are a lot of stuff I go out of my way not to use in games.

BTW are you forced to use the branded warchief in at some point in the missions?

[Aideux]

I'm just unhappy with the whole experience. If anything, it didn't bring anything new or exciting to the table, though the trailers tried to convince me of that. It just seemed like there was a lot more that was promised than there was delivered. I even gave it a shot, and was extremely bored with it after only half an hour. And unfortuneately, this is becuase it's exactly like the main game, only it's watered down.

[hinti21]

Originally posted by Aideux:

I'm just unhappy with the whole experience. If anything, it didn't bring anything new or exciting to the table, though the trailers tried to convince me of that. It just seemed like there was a lot more that was promised than there was delivered. I even gave it a shot, and was extremely bored with it after only half an hour. And unfortuneately, this is becuase it's exactly like the main game, only it's watered down.

I totally agree. I have spent around 26 hours in the main game and what kept me going this "long" was that I wanted to max out my char before I finished the story (at the end I decided to leave three skills out so I could max them during the DLCs). The gameplay had become so "known" by the the time he DLCs arrived that they were just repetetive to me (main quest in every DLC is "Take care of the five warchiefs."...really? -_-).
It's like "Nemesis System - The Game" + "Nemesis System with forced riding - The DLC" + "Nemesis System with changed abilities - The DLC".