DICE are one of my favourite developers. Not only are they pushing the boundaries with originality and new ideas, they also do kick ass things like this. We love you DICE!

If this only applies to people that bought new - as people in this thread are saying - and if DICE and EA actually stick to this commitment, then it's a brilliant way of undermining the second hand market for this and future games.  If they think they can make more out of these extra 'new' sales than they lose from selling the maps then it's just sound business.  But, if they do backtrack and start charging for maps, then next time around a lot of people will just say fuck it and go back to buying second hand.
 
EA are clearly playing for hearts & minds at the moment - to capitalize on the Activision nonsense - even if that means sacrificing a little revenue now.  The real money is to be made from having 'the buzz' be about Battlefield and Medal of Honor, instead of Call of Duty. With IW effectively decapitated, that has suddenly become... maybe not probable, but at least possible.

dice is serously one of the best developers out there.. i would compare them to valve etc. (atleast to the pc community)

Marketing trickery. They're directly competing with Inifinity Ward, Activision and MW2. So, naturally, they're going to do the opposite of what they do to keep their fanboys happen. Maybe they don't charge for maps this time around, but what about next time? What about when it becomes the industry standard, like when Activision starting charging $60 for games instead of $50 and everyone followed?
 
They don't do it know because there's a competitive marketing advantage to it. Once that's gone, they'll start charging. They're a business. They can't pay their employees on good intentions and player appreciation. They care about money as much as the next company. This is all just spin doctoring.
 
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I like the game a lot. But I'm not going to be tricked into thinking they care more about what I think of them as a company rather than making as much money as possible. And right now, being the anti-Infinity Ward/Modern Warfare is the best way to do that.

I'm more than happy to pay for good maps. What's a few bucks here and there for a good chunk of new content? And I don't want to wait until the game is six months old before they start putting content out, either.

That's a pretty good idea. At least I hope they don't, because I will never pay money for a couple maps.

WTF is with people talking like DICE has always made maps free? That couldn't be further from the truth.
 
Did everybody forget Armored Fury and Euro Force for BF2? How about Northern Strike for 2142? They eventually made them free after the game has been out for five years, but they were $20 a pop back when they came out (actually NS for 2142 isn't free yet, but it will be once patch 1.51 comes out).
 
I'm sure DICE will eventually make all BC2 stuff free (no more VIP required and any other paid DLC they might come up with that aren't maps) once they are preparing to shut down the console servers for the next EA hosted game that needs them in a few years.
 
I wonder what impact this will have on incentive to make actually new maps (and not just convert between Rush and Conquest) since people won't be buying them directly; and if it will push EA to come up with more DLC that they can charge for.