A basic criticism of nearly all the reviews Ive seen of 2142 state the game is excellent with maybe one flaw--the maps are too big. The trap to fall into for FirstStrike is to make the maps as big as possible. Big isnt always best. For some maps such as Hoth big is necessary but a major flaw in the battlefield series is the size of the maps.

I would like to see some smaller maps, not just cut downs of the main maps but designed in a way to fit 32-40 players in, be small but still designed to cope with this player amount. See Mos Eisley/Naboo SW Battlefront. Both are quite small maps but dsigned in a way to make it intense without being too crowded. Karkand (I know some peole think thats a swear word), Sharqui and Mashtar (sp. prob wrong) are 3 of the most popula maps in BF2. They arent massive, they concentrate fire fights and are sized and designed in a way to create bottlnecks. This seems popular as if a map is given too much space/ open areas a lot of guys cant be bothered hiking all the time and set up a sniper camp.

Map design is incredibly difficult in terms of balance. Sometimes only after you play it for real do you realise youve created a sniper camping map or put a cap in an awesomely stupid place or even designed the best map that ever was. Good luck on it as its one of the most important aspects there is. Who cares if all the units are amazingly balanced, look uber and play like a dream if the map you put them into is awful.

N.B our clan ,Imperial Clones, has been looking forward to this mod for ages and some are getting 2142 for the sole reason of playing FS with the actual game being just 'something to do' until FS  comes out :-).