As a series, the Lone Wolf books tend to have the flaw of carrying too much baggage. The powerful items you pick up in one book carry on to the next, but at the same time each book is supposed to serve as a standalone, leading to a bizarre mix of over- and under-powered items and encounters, making some things absurdly easy and others ridiculously difficult. This book, being the first of the Magnakai adventures, doesn't really suffer from that too much.
It has its faults, and if you play the books through in order then the possession of the Sommerswerd will, as always, vastly skew the difficulty level, but taken on its own, this adventure is pretty well balanced and provides the right level of challenge.
In addition to that, the story is more interesting, involving as it does more relatable elements, such as the warring nations, none of which is all good or all evil, and the quest for a mysterious, magical object hidden away for centuries, which is a story we've all read, seen and played dozens of times.
I'm not sure whether I'd recommend a new reader start out with this book or the first one. I think this is, in every way, a better book, but on the other hand, if you like it and want to read more, you're probably going to want to play through them in order.