I've played a very small amount of the free, trimmed down rules. I had a good time - I can't recall any specifics, but I definitely remember enjoying it. Not very helpful, I know, but there you go.
I really like some of the minis, but some of them are really off putting. There are only so many g-string wearing soldier ladies in a game before I begin to feel like it's really juvenile, and some of the others (notably the dog soldiers and a lot of the PanOceana stuff) don't really hit me in the right spot. But a lot of the more down-to-earth minis, like the SAS, Metros, Haqqislam, and the Loup Garou are really cool.
The only reason i don't currently play is that I don't have a great deal of storage space for stuff right now, and LotR takes up 95% of that. It's a pretty terrain heavy game, so it's just out of my reach right now. One day I'd love to do it - I had visions once of expanding it to cover larger scale engagements using the Tomorrow's War rules.