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Port - The scalability test
When I first played this map, the thing that really stood out was the size of it. Not just this, but the overall distance you can see in many place.
Port has become a scalability test for Counter-Strike: Source, seeing how much our current hardware can take.
Many of us screamed when we saw our FPS taking a nose-dive and landing just below 20 at points, and I'm sure Valve knew this would happen too. But as our underpowered computers start to improve we'll be sure to see the introduction of more maps like port.
Valve have always been about setting the benchmark and paving the way in games development, and port was Valve's way of dipping their big toe in the scalability bath-tub.


Was it successful?
Although only around 50% of computers were able to run port at an attractive FPS (40+), it certainly proved that larger environments are not limited by the source engine, but only by our aging computers. With this in mind Valve can begin to continue development work on the future face of counter-strike.

Size, Gameplay, Looks - The Balance
Counter-Strike has always grown up from a small-environment game, so port was a mould-breaker really. But is counter-strike, more importantly, it's players, ready for such a major change?
With the size increase of port gameplay changes drastically, to the point where it seems to feel like a different game. Long-range show-downs become the main form of combat in port, whereas most other maps tend to have a much more balanced blend of gameplay style.
Port attempted to bring this balance to the table with the use of its tunnel network, but in most of the games I've played the tunnels seem to be very under-used.



Maybe it's their dark and gloomy lighting, or their maze-like structure, but most players tend to only use the tunnels in an emergency situation.
I've tried using these tunnels as a primary strategy on many occasions, and I've found that they are only really useful for the Counter-Terrorists from the start of the round, they are mainly a covered method of getting into the warehouse. What the map really needed was an entrance into the tunnels nearer the Terrorist spawn-point. This would have encouraged both teams to use the tunnels more, and inevitably lead to more fast-paced close-quaters-combat.

Overall port has shown us that even large-scale environments are possible to run in Counter-Strike: Source, providing the gameplay still feels like Counter-Strike should.