When Battlefield 3 came out, one of the biggest complaints that I saw was about the maps. People complained that they were too enclosed, and there just wasn't enough space for proper vehicular combat. The levels Metro and Seine Crossing were commonly complained about due to their urban setting, something people felt belonged more in Call of Duty. I personally agreed with such comments at the time, and still do. What Battlefield has always had is its own niche of combining infantry and vehicular combat almost flawlessly.
In todays current gaming selection, modern combat is taking over. Nearly every game is either modern combat, or bases itself very closely to the Call of Duty formula. What Battlefield 3 did was push itself away from this by giving people the option of vast environments, which they could happily destroy with tanks, jets and other forms of armored weaponry. With the release of BF3CQ they are planning on moving more towards that CoD formula, which is something they really don't need to do. On the BF3CQ preview page they mention the word competitive. This is something that most likely won't exist in Battlefield.
Battlefield has struggled to make a huge impact in the past at events, and I believe that it will continue to struggle. The problem is that while Battlefield 3 is a great game, it requires far to many players to actually form a team, so organisations aren't willing to sponsor teams as often. By reducing it to Close Quarters they are now allowing for making teams smaller (Something we could have already done anyway with Squad Deathmatch and Rush), which makes it easier for teams to form and organisations to send teams to events. However by doing this they are now losing the niche and entering the 4v4 or 5v5 area of competitive FPS, a scene dominated by Counter Strike and Call of Duty 4 on the PC and Halo and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 on the Xbox, and personally I don't think that it can compete.
Battlefield 3 was never made with competition in mind, it was made for the huge maps and 32-64 player games. Trying to bring that formula down to 8-10 player servers is only going to ruin the experience. They would be best leaving Battlefield as it is, and actually do something with Medal of Honor if competition is where they want to go. The last iteration of Medal of Honor was forgotten in just a few weeks, and failed to make a big impact on the gaming world at all. Battlefield Expansions are gaining far more discussion than Medal of Honor is, which is something EA need to change if they want to continue spending money on the series. Now personally I would love to see them go to Medal of Honor with competition in mind, and take it back to WW2 and it's Allied Assault roots on the PC. Even today MoH:AA is still one of the finest PC games made, and still has quite a healthy community.
EA has the money, and certainly the talent, within their company if they wish to make a truly incredible competitive game. Turning Battlefield into EAs flagship competitive game, and moving it towards CQC will only upset the hardcore Battlefield players and be yet another question to the long list of "Why does MoH actually exist?".
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