In 1942 instead of the maps being linear the whole thing was open up and the maps were more open as well. So with D-Day the US can land on the beach and storm up the hill and be pushed back. The whole match can go like that. With the island maps you can be in a plane and attack from any side and you can land in a boat from any side wit ha group.

With the current games the maps are more linear. The map isn't open at first so it unlocks over time. And when a section does get unlocked nobody is fighting in the previous sections. Unlike 1942 where the whole map usually has things going on. Then for the more open maps they are still linear. You're going down the map in line which the maps are more like a rectangle unlike the maps in 1942 which was more of a square shape.

For myself I like the 1942 designs better. I like being able to attack anywhere on the map instead of it being closed off until a certain amount of time. And I like how open they felt. In the current games they feel almost linear like since the map long wise is larger than the width wise.   

I haven't played much of 1942 at all, so I can't say anything about that >.>

But of the games I have played--2142 through Battlefield 4--I felt like Bad Company 2 had the best maps.

That's a problem with how Rush works really, not so much map design.