Now if I tell you its shit then you go away and make an awesome map you will have actually aided my arguement not proven me wrong.
If it is 10% done as you say then to comment on it would be unfair, only once its 100% playable (note: playable not finished) However once you finish it and release it unless you are an absolute natural with hammer it probably will, unfortunatly, be less than amazing.
If I'm honest and tell you it really isn't any good and you are one of the determind ones, who has what it takes, you'll shut yourself away and work even harder for your next map. But if I say it looks stunning I'll have lowered your standards for your next map, you'll only want to make something on par or just better, rather than hugely better.
Unfortunatly places like this make it seem like posting the very first map you've ever made (I mean ever) is ok. Its not, its just really not.
[Important bit]
You want to become a painter, but you've never touched a paintbrush or paints before in your life... do you make the very first thing you do a proper portrait and sell it? No of course not, you do studies of line qualities, brush stroke styles, colours, then you move on to more tricky things like painting a figure, but you'll still need to practice lots before you have something worth selling.
What you are doing is rushing in and selling your very first piece, you probably wont have stretched the canvas properly or you'll have left bits of it showing through or the colours might be horribly off and it doesn't really do the subject justice. Do you not think you should practice more before diving straight in at the deep end with a comissioned portrait?
[/Important bit]
I guess the problem is people don't realise that mapping is an artform and that they should treat it like they would treat a self emplyed job (If you don't provide the best service you can no one will want to pay for it so you'll not have an income...)
If and when I do pass comment on it I won't be saying anything along the lines of 'this is shit' because whilst telling a lie and saying its great isn't the best alternative, I'll provide constructive critique, Like "this area doesnt really work for reason X making it not very fun for class Y, you could sove this by doing Z" because that is more likely to be helpful than either of the two extreme responces.
Edit: Thanks Grazr, thats pretty much it. I made the same dm map (for hl2dm) three times (almost completely, it was about late beta stage each time). Each time I got significantly better but still after the third itteration I was not happy with the quality difference between my map and official ones like dm_lockdown or dm_overwatch. I never released it. No one other than me and one of my RL friends have ever seen it. Then I made some single player levels for HL2, I improved my work flow more and learnt yet more skills, I had one that was almost finished, posibly another few weeks work and it would have been a half decent map (one I'd have been ok with releasing publicly) but then I decided to move on as I had learnt about func_detail and I'd not been using it.
What I'm trying to say is, I'd had many many many many maps each almost ready for release before I actually released one I was proud of.
Mangy, could not agree more with you about people thinking the standard valve style has been done too many times. I just don't understand it..