The game was initially released with four maps, although later updates have introduced five new levels and eight community produced maps supported by Valve. The game's levels are based after real battles in the Allied campaigns in Italy, Sicily and France, such as the Falaise pocket or the beach landings of Operation Shingle at Anzio, as well as fictional battles. Combat can take place in several environments, such as city streets, buildings and sewers. Each online game can sustain a maximum of 32 players.
The objective in a detonation level is to plant and detonate explosive devices on a number of enemy positions, which can consist of anti-aircraft guns, tanks and armored cars. Some positions must be hit twice for them to be destroyed. Players can protect their positions by defusing the explosives before they detonate. In one variation of this game mode, one side has to defend their positions for a set amount of time, with the destruction of each piece of equipment giving the enemy team more time. The defenders win if they can hold their positions long enough for the time to run out, while the attackers win when all objectives have been destroyed. In the alternate version, both teams must attack the other's objectives while defending their own. The first team to destroy all of the enemy's equipment wins.
Criticism of the game principally revolved around the lack of content. While praise was bestowed upon the quality of the content already available, a number of reviewers were concerned about the small number of maps included in the initial release, even though new content was promised by Valve for later. IGN commented that the existing content had a good chance of going "stale", while GameSpy stated that the game's "lack of breadth" was a "serious shortcoming". In addition, PC Zone commented that "by still clinging to the small-scale skirmish atmosphere of the original, Day of Defeat: Source doesn't make much of departure from Counter-Strike", stating that this made the game seem like a "facelift" to a "much-loved mod [...] before making us pay for it again". PC Zone summed its review up by commenting that "this is an old game—an excellent old game and a beautiful old game—but an old game nonetheless".
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