Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - The Bright Lord

The Bright Lord is a bunch of frustrating fun, but it pays off at the end with new missions, upgrades and quick gameplay.

A more robust offering than last time, and a more essential addition this time around, The Bright Lord is a solid way to top off Shadow of Mordor's Season Pass.

The Bright Lord pushes Shadow of Mordor to a new difficulty level and gives you cool abilities, like summoning Orcs and the power of The One Ring, to conquer the strongest evil presence we have met since the game was released. The satisfaction of claiming an enormous battlefield is big, but the story is lackluster, preventing The Bright Lord from being a crucial chapter of the Shadow of Mordor story.

Either way, it's more Shadow of Mordor with some slight twists, and that's still as good a reason as any to go there and back again with one of 2014's most triumphant titles.

The power of the Ring and the big final battle with Sauron were some nice surprises on this enjoyable expansion. Unfortunately, the overall contents on the DLC and the poor story are far from the greatness of the original game.

An acceptable DLC to say goodbye to Shadow of Mordor. It's fun and challenging as long as it lasts, but in some areas it's below the level of the original adventure.

While it's great to have a climactic final battle with Sauron, the rest of the game feels like a watered down version of the original. Add to that some weak storytelling and lack of character development and it ends up feeling like an ill conceived DLC prequel.

Although battling Sauron himself in the final showdown is enticing, this new campaign plays too similarly to the main game to convey the sense of grandeur of such an epic background.

An ill conceived try to introduce some new gameplay elements that don't mesh well with the Nemesis System.

Return to the Middle-earth is not very satisfying, with limited access to the Nemesis system and scenarios that quickly become boring.