battle for middle earth is a pretty good rts, u should try it...
as for best lotr game ever...
i really liked the interplay game...it was an rpg based off of the cartoons(fellowship of the ring, the one where it looks like frodo has a fro) it was a snes title and you started off with frodo and picked up npcs along the way(sam, merry, pippen, gimli, legolas, strider) the ai isnt too great...your allies would rarely attack an enemy, and when you fight balrog, your allies run up and try attacking him(sigh)...the levels toward the end become very repetative and familiar. If you had one of those 4 controller adapter, you could have friends link up and play characters like sam or pippen or legolas etc. It had a hack and slash element to it...you had attack and block and then could use abilities...all around it was a really fun game because i tried to go up against the ring wraiths...and then ran away and all of a sudden merry was lvl 24 while i was still lvl 8...