The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Preview

The folks over at TeamXbox are next in line with a preview of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North based on the action RPG's showing at this year's GDC. A sampling:
The characters also have skills that apply to the world around them. The dwarf can see structural weaknesses in walls and break them down, where other characters would be clueless to their existence. The human can see traps hidden around the battlefields and the elf can find healing herbs around the game world. Playing as the human, it was interesting to see the dwarf break through a wall that looked completely solid from my end.

Each character is given melee and ranged moves, though the human has better bow skills and the dwarf has the strongest melee attacks. As you battle forward, you build combos that lead to critical attacks that can remove limbs and heads from bodies quite a gruesome sight. As you take out enemies, you'll earn experience to build up your character which can multiply as you fight. You'll compete for stats against your cooperative players and no matter how you're playing the game, you'll always carry your experience back from your online matches.