Whilst I agree with the general sentiment that EA/Dice truely screwed over PC gamers with the release of BF3 - it's no where near as bad you make out. EA still deserve a slap though for trying to make me pay for a "premium" subscripton @ £40, and for allowing people to cheat and get ahead by paying for XP/unlocks. Annoying but this is EA, they are well known scumbags and we should know better than to buy their games .
The HUD/UI is actually rather good and works well - a general improvement over the previous BF Games (not that "bad company" etc don't count there!). We got the Commo-rose back and whilst it's not up to the level of BF2/2142 it's useful enough and does the job well enough.
In game voip? I am so glad that we don't have this forced on us..no need to mute the screaming kids or idiots who think Lady GaGa should be played down the microphone. It's so easy to use TS or Vent for proper team based play, we don't need it in game. I never used it in BF2 or 2142 and didn't suffer, the vast majority never will either.
I am 100% in agreement on the map sizes though and this is my biggest grip. The BF series (again, Bad company etc don't count) were always made for large maps with lots of players..BF2 and 2142 in particular had huge maps with huge playable areas..this simply doesn't exist in BF3. Even my favourite BF map - Gulf of Oman - has been shrunk in terms of playable area. Sure the maps themselves may technically be large but if you can't go there and fight then whats the point?
Rush mode is/was a total waste of development time and should never have made it in - makes it a pain as sometimes you join a 64 player conquest large server in good faith and then the map rotates to Metro..I have to waste time loading it before i can quit and go play on a better server. Frustrating but I understand that they had to put this mode in to appease console gamers or Bad Company fans. Oh and again the single player was a total waste of money...
I still play and really Enjoy BF3 on 64 player conquest large servers - despite all my gripes/complaints I love the game..not as much as 2142 but it's a lot of fun, especially in 3D.
Back OT - I am looking forward to BF4 at the moment but with some apprehension..they really need to make Conquest Large the primary game mode again and open up the maps back to what they should be. This is actually promised for an expansion pack next year (some super large maps) but I will wait and see if they mean large, playable maps or just large maps that we can't explore.
I won't be buying Warfighter to get the early access this time around - I got burned by MOH last time being rather..average (not rubbish, just very short and not up to standard)..and then with our "early access" to BF3 beta being next to useless as it was only a week early..especially as I got into the alpha and official beta ahead of the MOH purchasers anyway.