Played a couple of games on the new ground war farm map and it's actually pretty good. Makes a huge change not having to worry about being sniped from multiple building rooftops. I wish they would do away with the tanks and just keep infantry transport vehicles but other than that, it's a much better map with more controlled and less frantic action. Doesn't seem as big as the other two particularly the City map.
I'm really annoyed that some of the challenges are still broken and one of my missions (Warrior Code) that doesn't even track anymore, now de-selects itself after every match and I have to re-enable it in the non-existent hope that it suddenly starts recording. I'm still getting plenty of 725 and claymore kills and I haven't had enough chance to really assess the impact of the other changes but I'd say footsteps area quieter.