Paint - ****
Anybody can just slap grey paint on something and call it a castle - the beautiful sculpt would be nothing if the paint did not highlight it perfectly, and this does.  Stones look weathered, they look old, they look battered by wind and rain, it feels just right.  If the set didn't come painted, it would be challenging to duplicate this.  At the same time, don't think you can throw away that brush. . . see Accessories, below.

Articulation/Features - ***
I'm going to group these, as obviously a fort doesn't have articulation. The set seemed interesting to me until I saw the back, at which point it instantly became "must own."  Why?  The stairs carved into one of the walls. The opening gate is nice, and the working flaps in the shield at the top are a cute touch.  But if this were just gate-and-walls, it'd be hard to get excited.  But the stairs carved into the wall capture the feel of the movie, give the set a gorgeous "center" for displaying figures, it is breathtaking. They look exactly as they should, and even though the moving parts qualify more as "features" than a stationary staircase, I still consider this the greatest feature of the set, and the biggest selling point.

Accessories - Bupkis
As a longtime gamer, I wouldn't have expected any.  But that doesn't mean I don't recognize a  need!  This set could easily have included a sprue of plastic figures, or some ladders, or SOMETHING.  It comes with nothing. That's a shame, because out-of-the-box it isn't really enough for a display, and that hurts its value score (see below).  As a collector (who has the
other items anyway) it does help that accessories EXIST, but you have to buy them separately.  Games Workshop does make just about everything you would want to see at Helm's Deep, though:  Uruk-hai with swords, with pikes,
berserker Uruks, Uruks holding banners, elves with swords, elves with bows, Rohan soldiers with spears, with bows, with axes, with swords, mounted Rohan soldiers, not to mention Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Haldir, Gamling, Theoden (in armor), Eowyn (from a cut sequence in the Caves), an elven standard bearer, and so forth.  They even make ladders, Saruman's "bombs," and the giant grappling-hook launching siege engine, not to mention a battering ram. To save the day, you can even buy a Gandalf the White, Eomer, and some horsemen to rush into the Uruk pikes (also available), all posed to recreate that iconic moment.  It's difficult to imagine a scene from the movie that cannot be recreated here (Aragorn sitting on the steps talking to Hama's son may be the only one!).

But here's the rub:  It's nice that the Helm's Deep set comes assembled and painted, but it looks threadbare without any figures fighting.  So you'll
have to buy some, at least, and that means painting.  GW makes some plastic sets that are somewhat cheap, but you must assemble the figures (usually it just means gluing an arm on, quite simple), glue them to bases, and paint
them.  If you really hate that idea, you're not gonna enjoy this set as much as the next guy or girl.  For most gamers, this is half the fun, but it does mean that the "fully painted" quality of Helm's Deep requires qualification. A good HD display is not going to be ready-made.

So from any standpoint, the accessories score hurts the set.  It doesn't come "complete," and a good display doesn't come assembled, or painted.

Value - * or ***1/2
As a longtime gamer, I consider this set a fantastic buy.  It's the center of a good LOTR display, it's wonderfully made and should store safely in the package, and it will last the ages nicely.  But I recognize that the casual toy fan is going to blanche at the price:  $75.  Many places will have it discounted for $60, but it's gonna be tough to find it for less.  With GW making so few, don't expect to see overstock on eBay for cheap, either. Unfortunately, the general consensus is that GW loses money on an item like this - the tooling and material is so expensive, they have to charge $75 to come close to making a profit, and they only made it because they are big fans themselves.  It's just not a cheap proposition to do something like this, and if you want it, you have to pay up.  To get a sense of why a gamer can consider this a value, though, consider this:  Fellowship also received resin treatment from GW.  Their sister company Forge World made a Weathertop piece that will reduce you to sobs.  It comes unpainted, and costs about $200.  See why the Helm's Deep set seems a bargain to me?

Some people can't imagine paying $7 for the new Justice League figures from Mattel, others can't fathom $50 for an imported Macross Valkyrie, or $30 for a giant talking tree.  Similarly, some people will never accept $75 for Helm's Deep.  But for those "in the hobby," used to the market, this is a good price.  It's a high end item, difficult to produce, made for the real die-hard collector.  And with all those qualifications, it's a reasonable price.  The only hit this score takes is from the fact that a good display requires more purchases, so the $75 is only the start.  You'll have to shell
out $15 for a regiment of soldiers if you want to man those gates, and another $10-15 if you want some attacking Uruks.  For those of us who already had them, not a problem - but still a factor for many.  Just like the "comes fully painted" needs an asterisk (but the figures don't!) so does the "costs $75!" (plus the cost of figures, ladders, siege engines, etc).

Overall - ****
I'm not going to bother to calculate a final score based on previous categories' scores, though I expect the end result would be the same.  The fact is, this is a four-star item.  It looks amazing, it turns a small tabletop pile of figures into an accurate representation of a fantastic movie, and it is precisely what playset-loving Lord of the Rings fans would wish for in their dreams.  Sure, I suppose one could wish for a more complete representation of the fortress, but this is already a large enough piece to make me more than happy, and I expect that die-hard LOTR fans (not
to mention gamers) are going to be very pleased with it.