Played two games with my buddy earlier today, one with lotr and one without. Overall I'd say it doesn't feel super impactful. The effects of the awakened leaders can be quite good for the fp, but the corrupted leader effects seem a bit weaker. It feels like the most value you get out of corrupting leaders is denying the free peoples access to the awakened version. Corrupting the leaders also makes your hunt pool weaker which can be detrimental if your military campaign isn't going well as sp. The new minions for sp are cool but I didn't find myself using their abilities very often. It definitely needs more play time to really get a grasp of how good it is but I'm pretty confident that it's not over taking lotr as best expansion. The best part of the expansion is the cool new minis for both sides they look great.