I picked it up since it's on sale for $17 for the GotY edition and it's been one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. I played 4 hours last night and I'm so eager to play more tonight.
Pick it up if you don't have it!
It's similar to assassin's creed or batman where you can sneak and stealth around and the combat is really interactive, so that's fun. But to me so far, what's really cool are the enemy captains you come across. The orcs have all their normal grunts, but then they have a pile of captains, veteran captains, elite captains out there. Each with their own personality and traits.
I came...

I added it so you can now add it to your list: http://cheerfulghost.com/game/28042/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor
The game sounds great and it's FAR up my list of games to play. What with Fallout 4 and Legacy of the Void I have quite a bit of game for the time being. That said the Steam Holiday sale is coming too and I might pick this up then(if it's on sale).
This game keeps getting recommended to me by friends, I will pick this up it's just a matter of when I can play it
Hopefully it is, it's 66% off right now for the full package. maybe it'll be same or cheaper for Christmas. It is worth every penny. I'm just dying to get off work and go play!
And I hear ya, far too often I pick up a game because it's on sale, but then never make time to play it. Or I buy it full price and never play it lol. I'm pretty bad about it, honestly. I was nervous I'd do the same here, but watching the 8.5 minute video on steam sold me so hard. (Watch that if you haven't, it talks about some of the aspects of gameplay and you'll be drooling after).
It's definitely an action game, not an RPG game, but that's totally fine by me, I don't have much time for RPGs anymore... I can't dedicate enough time to them.
I played another 5 hours last night..... I'm starting to get into the power struggles of the orcs with each other. I had a quest which basically is a lead in to me flexing my influence. The quest involved a scrawny whiny orc working with me. I basically killed a captain and this little guy cut his ear off and took credit for the kill so he'd be captain. Then I killed an elite captain for him and finally a Warchief. I had not previously faced a warchief. I had to infiltrate his fortress first (not interior) and kill a bunch of guys to get his attention. So now, this scrawny orc is the new warchief, but he supposedly will follow my commands... I know at some point (probably now that I did this little intro into it) I can mindmeld with orcs to dominate their mind and make them my puppet. Then I think I can manipulate the power struggles to get them to rise to higher ranks as my puppet. We'll see!
My combat skills are definitely on the rise, I can face down a hundred melee grunts. I still die to javelin throwers (pesky bastards) and captains are still hard, especially with a swarm of enemies or other captains. This one captain was particularly hard to kill, he had loaded armor on, huge shield and unblockable spear attacks. He slashed me and threw me around for half my health... lot of dodging. But he was also a learner. The same tactic didn't work more than once on him. He was immune to ranged attacks. I couldn't jump/dodge over the top of him to get him from behind easier.. He called reinforcements often. The only way I finally won after running away ragged was to keep sprinting away, climbing this platform and then sneak kill his allies to get him alone before more showed up. Even 1v1 he was super hard to fight since he blocked any head on attack.
(cutting post due to 3000 characters)
I finally killed this other bastard that rose all way up the ranks and kept surviving encounters with me which earned him promotions. He killed me as a grunt a long time ago which promoted him to captain. Then every time I faced him he was with 3 other captains and I couldn't win. He finally got to a high power that he was strong 1v1, he had this bloody wicked long knife that dug into me. But I got him last night! He was doing a recruitment mission to get orcs to join him. I snuck in to disrupt him. Well, I shot down a nest of angry hornet things and he happened to be afraid of them, so he ran for it and the recruits were like, I'm not going to follow that guy! So success there, plus I left the outpost he was in and chased him as he fled. I caught up to him and since he was in a fleeing state, I was able to land a 1 hit KO on him.
The little personality quirks are really cool. Some guys are scared of beasts, some get enraged by you hurting their guards, each captain has different strengths and weaknesses. Also, the dialogue is fun. One captain I kept facing was a cannibal and he kept making eating jokes. I'm excited to start getting more into the power struggles and trying to get a foothold against these warchiefs.
Game is so fun! A solid 9+ hours played now and I'm still so ready to play more!