I just finished building a MM all decked out with custom mods, clearcoated playfield, color DMD etc. We love the game, but with the clear coated repro'd playfield, strong flippers, slings, etc the ball action is just crazy (spins, bounces, slides, etc). Especially if you make shots in a row since it just adds to the ball speed. I know it's not an MMr, but everything in it is new or polished and rebuilt. When I played MMr at Texas Pinball Festival they weren't near as fast or brutal as ours is, but I'm not sure how they were setup (I ran up a ridiculous score there).

You have to work for a great game on MM (at least ours). Heck you have to work to just have a ball last more then 30 seconds. I have it set with mid wide outlanes and it is pretty steep, but every shot is makeable. My wife and I can play a game and get a crappy ball, or a crappy game where you don't even get a multiball. Then we will play it more (we never stop if we haven't gotten a multiball) and you can get things working well and run up a great score with multiballs etc. Last night she played five games before getting a decent game and she's pretty good.

Compared to the LOTR we have, my MM is a brute, but that's part of why we like it so much. It does play completely different and if you go from playing a stern like LOTR to playing MM it takes a bit to adjust. We have about 15 games setup so we are always jumping between them.

Balls can change direction when they slide along the troll flaps if going slow, banging the castle is always a risk and if you haven't shopped your LOTR recently then all of the rubbers on MM are going to be much more bouncy (I have superbands on ours) adding to the chaos.

I hope it grows on you, but as others have said if you really don't like it then sell it and move on. I don't think you will lose much unless you just have to have it gone tomorrow...