The Tain

Wow did danny elfman really make the track just for your map? Must be an honor!

No but seriously, its a fun map that takes a while and a few pairs of eyes. Watch out for the damn wights!

I'd give this map a four, but I'm afraid there are quite a few things that bring it down, I'll try to run through the various items quickly.

Colour map

While not bad by any means, it's very unpolished. A lot of stark edges, parts that don't really fit the terrain, or "synthetic" areas (where they are an unnatural shape) bring it down. The texture-work on the colour-map itself is good, and there's a lot packed in to make it visually appealing, but some of the strange looking areas need to be broken up, and things like the hills/cliffs ought to fit better. On which note the displacement map could do with a little extra work on the cliffs mainly, as they appear very unnatural.

Detail texturing

A lot of the detail textures are nice, but don't quite fit as well as they could. Many areas where they don't blend properly (you get the blurry effect), or patches that don't match the colour-map etc. For the most part looks very good given the style of texture that's been chosen.

Gameplay

LONG! Took me almost 6 hours on normal with breaks and in two sittings. The game-play is very solid, and entertaining enough to keep you going, however there are some points to make: - Too many "surprise" thrall, gets very repetitive (it's better when you're not expecting them). - Ambush on the other side of the world knot, while do-able, is not a particularly nice situation to be put in, and one that requires saving to do right as there's just too many wildcards (mainly your dwarves and the ghôls). - The graveyard ambush is a bit obvious, and being swarmed in that way wasn't too fun. Perhaps would have been better for the graveyard to do nothing, but be attacked by enemies from both sides (so you can defend using its walls). - Too many underwater attacks, the bit in the north west especially was tiresome. Likewise with cliff soulless, they're not fun to fight. - Enemy melee behaviour is a bit strange, they lock on to a target and stick with it even if a better one is available. - Iron Trow? They're interesting to put in, but way too overpowered, it's basically impossible to defeat one without some casualties as they refuse to be led, and are more powerful even than in Myth 3, causing loads of damage to an area, fairly quickly, and also on death. Contrary to the hints they are almost impervious to dwarf Molotov cocktails. - The fort at the end. It's what I call a "casualty fest". It may seem cool to have a fight with a ton of units, but it's not Myth. The fort is very hard to defend properly, and there are too many units to control, meaning all this part does is deprives a player from winning with no-casualties.

Don't get me wrong, on the whole the game-play is good, while it stales a bit it isn't completely boring. Personally I'd like to be able to play the map with a slightly smaller force, and a lot less enemies to make it quicker.

Conclusion

A very good effort, though still rough around the edges. On the whole it is thoroughly playable and worth downloading (though beware some of the points above before going in). I'd recommend it as a co-op due to the number of units that are accumulated, however be warned it will still require several hours to play.

An interesting mix of units is provided, the light-side selection is especially fun, though a little hard to manage solo without decreasing speed or pausing. In fairness to the first Iron Trow I did spend a good half-hour or so trying to find a way to kill it without taking any casualties using the various things I had available, but the aforementioned inability to lure it about, and the damage it does when it dies makes it pretty much impossible without pausing/slowing-down, or playing co-op.

Also not sure what the pregame image has to do with the map =P