During a bout of wicked insomnia Last night, I hopped into the community hopper, and I think I saw all of the new maps. Overall the quality is around a C or so I'd say, and each map has at least one serious issue, generally more. Many of them have the same flaws, too many power weapons, too many 45degree ramps, awkward jumps, sections with too few entrances/exits. Every map featured at least one "Jetpack asshole mountain" where a jetpacker could go, but no one else. Most had some serious spawning issues too.
Favorite: Obisdian. It plays like a combination of Ivory tower, and Hang em High. Fun combat around that long central platform, and some really cool cat and mouse in the tower. Clear, easy to understand layout, and it doesn't rely on too many 45 degree surfaces. Unfortunately, there's a jetpack asshole mountain on top of the tower, and the rockets are on a 30 second respawn. One guy in a game had 30 kills, 24 of them with the fucking rockets. WTF.
Most hated: Capacitor. Once a decent team gets sniper rifles on the outside ring it's over. The angles are too steep, and there's too much cover, while you start spawning into sniper fire. Some serious bullshit there.
Most wasted potential: Ziggurat. zipping around this map in a jetpack is just good fun. And the home bases are suprisingly fun. Too bad it has the worst weapon set of any Halo map ever. FRG? Seriously? And on top of that, 2 focus rifles, 2 pro pipes, 2 concussion rifles and a hammer? Games on this map just get silly. Spawning is terribad too.
Playing in this makes me want to get back into forge, I see so many things I did in my first map that are pretty terrible now, and I want to go back and fix it, and some things give me inspiration for my second map.