You always get 'some' people who think a games going to be great but generally speaking this game wasn't on anyone's radar. The responses on Gaf show quite clearly how surprised most people are by the review scores.

Awesome, the autumn games season has started well :D

Now let's see how AC Unity, Far Cry 4 and DI : Inquisition do..

Along with a new Battlefield and CoD

Things are looking good for next gen third party woohoo

The game looks awesome. A must get for me.

Yep, still doesn't change that they both thought it would be a good game. Honestly I'm not surprised by the good scores either, game looks amazing. 

Doesn't convince me

Gaf really didn't rate this game before these reviews and are surprised? Do they need a game to have an overwhelming amount of hype before its on their radar or what?

This game wasn't on my radar before, now I'm interested.

I wasn't interested in this game before, but now I am. Still I don't know much about LOTR so I need to know whether I'll be able to understand what's going on in the game without having read or watched LOTR books or movies.

Same here. It's not that I rely on numbers to decide my purchase, it's just that it wasn't even on my list of games I will buy in the future (now present). I had The Witcher, Bloodborne, Diablo 3 and The Order and this game wasn't even considered. Now I've read some of the reviews, it's at least on my consideration list.

Not surprised at all. Its from the makers of AVP2, FEAR and Comdened. 3 absolute gems. I had my eye on this the second it was announced, more so than Dragon Age and The Witcher, even if I dont give a shit about tolkein type crap.