I think that despite the title being used widely (It's been used in approximately one game every year for the past 10 years), most of the games have been pretty varied. RTS games, Action titles, a Japanese-Style RPG (albeit a bad one), an MMORPG, etc.
Honestly, I don't even care that the game has the LotR license. I'm interested in it because the developer - Snowblind - has several ARPG hits to their name and I trust their ability to craft a worthwhile dungeon crawler.
It's also interesting that you mention you want it to be like "KotOR" - War in the North doesn't follow Frodo or Gandalf or any of those folks. It's the same time period, yeah, but it's like a Shadows of the Empire - your characters in War in the North are like Dash Rendar. He's there when shit is going down, but he's not blowing up the death star.