Can't comment on the maps outside a vague - I disliked how open and messy the flow felt. I haven't played PVP nearly enough to guess what specifically made me dislike them, but I can day vehicle balance has been a culprit in the past.
I love the maps in BF1942, despite being incredibly open themselves. I chalk part of the reason as being due to the vehicle balance, where any vehicle felt as weak as a given infantry player. Tanks could be destroyed with a single aircraft bomb, aircraft could be melted with stationary AA (or shot with machine guns). Nothing felt powerful in terms of survivability. As powerful as planes were, they were also easy to take out.
Another reason was the utilization of fog to limit line of sights. It's sure not satisfying to play many maps with fog, but there are some outliers like Wake Island that I feel desperately depended on it to achieve more enjoyable dynamics. The two forks behaving more as their own combat areas, due to the cut off visibility from the other side. It also acted as fog of war, requiring pilots to stay reasonably close to the ground in order to see targets. With ships / boats having some lee-way to maneuver the map without being spotted a mile out.
I also prefer maps that are given a particular purpose. I generally dislike jack-of-all-trades maps, because they often fall short in every regard. If Conquest is the main mode, I'd want maps that play into its strengths. If Rush is the main mode, then I'd want maps that work well with MCOM placements, and give a meaningful play area around them, with an allowance for flanks and predictions. As though each MCOM is a map of its own. Or in the case of BF1942, if a map is focused on being a naval map, that's great! If it does one thing particularly well, then for me anyway, that tremendously improves the chances that I'll enjoy it.
DICE Team
