I read the manual once and have looked at images over at Board Game Geek. 

Am I wrong to assume that this is more of a strategy game about influence than a questing adventure game?

Do you earn money, xp, items by questing?  Can you level up your characters, equip weapons, armor, items?

I guess with a name like Middle-Earth Quest, I hoped this would be a game where you form a party and explore Middle-Earth looking for treasures/artifacts and have a heavy emphasis on battling Balrogs and other nasties.    Yet it truly looks like any fighting or character stuff is secondary to Influence over Middle-Earth ie the Dark Lord ie. the exact thing that Bilbo and Frodo did.  Not sure I like the 100% card-driven gameplay either.

 Sauron plays a strategy game.  The heroes play an adventure game.

If you take a look at the rulebook you'll see it states this explicitly and is even divided into two halves - the Sauron rules and the hero rules.

But it has been said by many that you have to run around worrying about influence tracks and that there is no leveling of characters (character progression) and hardly any items to equip etc.  Sounds like the good guys have to squash fires (removing plots) and collect favor around the map rather than going on adventures and doing what they please. 

 It has a very similar feel to Arkham Horror.  So if you count that as an adventure game, then this one is too.  The two main differences are:

1) The "evil" side of the game is controlled by a living, breathing player, rather than being automated randomly by cards.

2) There isn't as much "levelling up" and there are only three different items to collect (horse, boat, elven cloak).  Levelling up still occurs, but it's not the main focus of the game like in other adventure games.  In this case, the main focus is the tasks you have to perform (the equivalent of sealing gates).

Frog said:

Yeah, the characters do level up and there is some exploring and item acquisition, but overall it's only half of the game.  I think if you're really looking for an in-depth questing experience you need to play an RPG.  If the game is as fun as it looks, hopefully there'll be an expansion to add more items, quests, characters, etc.  Oh yeah, there are always current quests (targeted goals) ongoing for the heroes in the game, so it is a little RPG-ish in that sense.

So far all the player reviews I have read make it sound like a strategy game.  Then again every review out there has been written by Sauron players.

Andy character players have reviews up?