Monolith Productions may be most well known for developing the hit games F.E.A.R. and Condemned, but they’ve also made quite a splash in the downloadable ‘arcade’ market with Gotham City Imposters. It looks like they have another downloadable hit on their hands with Guardians of Middle-Earth (available on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN).

If you’re familiar with the insanely popular League of Legends game on the PC (or DOTA 2) then you’ll easily understand how to play Guardians of Middle-Earth. GoME is a console version of these games with a Lord of the Rings theme, so you’ll be playing as characters such as Gandalf or Sauron. I’ve played a handful of matches so far and I have to say the game plays great on a console. Controls are quite intuitive. Hold right trigger for your basic attack while the face buttons are used for special attacks and abilities. When you level up, simply hold RB (on the 360) to open your abilities menu and press to corresponding button to quickly add a point to your chosen ability).

Guardians of Middle-Earth also spices things up by allowing you to upgrade your towers as you level up. The higher your level the more powerful the upgrade you can apply to any given tower. You can change their rate of fire, or build a barracks to spawn more powerful creatures.

The graphics are pretty nice and the map is well designed and nice to look at when you’re not frantically attacking (or retreating).

Guardians of Middle-Earth is available for $15 (1200 MSP) and there’s also a season pass available for an additional $15 which will grant you access to future DLC ‘guardians’ (the characters you play as) and other content. It’s certainly a great game to enjoy as you prepare to watch The Hobbit this weekend.

If you want to see the game in action, check out Giant Bomb’s gameplay ‘quick look’ which features 37 minutes of gameplay and commentary, below: