So you get a better understanding of how good your map is in comparison to others by the "AWESOME" "Map of the year!" responses that everyone is saying in every damn thread?
I would have said this myself but...no one on here has enough sense to listen. People should really stop spewing out maps that look obviously incomplete, as if they were worked on for a day. I understand that there are newcomers to mapmaking - I am one myself - but to release a map when there are still noticeable faults with? Imo, There are a few questions you should ask yourself before you release a map for the first time - most of which center around looks and realism:
1) Are the meshes/textures/brushes resized to proportion?
2) What is emitting light, where does it come from, and how strong would the source be?
3) Is the layout of the map logical (if in a building or manmade structure)?or are there just a bunch of random rooms connected to random halls?
4) Visually, what does your map have to offer? Does it have the same feel of quality as the stock maps, with enough detail and ambience?
There are many ideas out there that have so much potential yet almost none of them are executed to such a limit. When I play the custom maps, I find myself running through them once and never playing them again, just because it doesn't bring anything new or interesting to the table and it's not as good or fun as the stock maps.
As far as this map goes, there needs to be some major resizing...everything was huge.. There's a lot of suggestions and advice I could give you, but at this point you should make sure you have the layout you want and then fix the details.