Slow combat will change on Dec 1st. I don't know what you mean by unusual art direction? LOTRO is one of the best looking MMO's out there. The NPC's could use some touch up work but it's stunning for a game that is almost 3 years old. The environments are the best on an MMO behind only AoC.

I think the art is subjective. I honestly think their characters and and armors look very bad. The environment is only OK as far as I'm concerned. I like the fields of flowers waving in the wind and whatnot but it doesn't pull me in a lot of the textures really don't look natural and just look painted on. It looks very much the same as DDO in many ways whos' art direction i do not like. It may be their engine perhaps?

What are they doing to combat?

I like the armor in the game. It fits the Middle Earth setting as far as I'm concerned. Some of the shoulder pads in the raid armor sets are a little to high fantasy for me. This isn't WoW so keep the armor basic and simple like it would be in a medieval setting. I agree about some of the textures but it's mainly a draw distance complaint. Up close things look incredible. If you want to see ugly environment textures, check out Aion.

I can't comment much on the combat changes but it's been confirmed by the developers on the forums so I can't get in trouble for telling you this.

SoM includes a combat response system change. Combat pace is being quickened and made more responsive. You are able to interrupt auto attacks with skills. There is more but I don't think the dev diary has released yet so I don't want to break any NDA. You can get this little bit of info from their forums. I think you would be pleased though so I recommend trying it for yourself on December 1st. I also think the combat changes are part of a free update coming on the 1st so you might not need to buy SoM to get the change. This hasn't been confirmed yet though.

Of course, art style is subjective but for me, I think it's pretty well done. I like the look of DDO and LOTRO and with a powerful video card and settings on Ultra High the game is one of the most beautiful I've played in.

As for the combat, yeah, that's getting a re-work in SoM.

For my money, LOTRO is one of the top MMOs on the market.