The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age is a pretty terrible cash-in from the same people who managed to turn The Godfather films into a semi-mindless MMORTS game. With a Gollum prize wheel and very few recognisable links to the films or books, Christopher Tolkien has had little good to say about Peter Jackson's influence over Middle-Earth, and I imagine Armies of the Third Age would push that opinion even further.
So why is it so damn popular?
Kabam today announced that a million users have subscribed to Armies of the Third Age, a number that truly makes the mind boggle. If you were worried that the half-assed tie-ins from our childhood were gone, know that they're alive and well, and mostly in the form of web games.