Bear with my detailed, but very critical impressions:
#1. A cool night elf village. I don't think there's near enough houses to make it feel like a town though, and it's a little weird that there's a cage hanging around someone's house (I haven't played WoW, but it seems out of character for Night Elves to just imprison people where anyone can see them). Also, the terrain leading up to the top building looks really rocky, enough that I wonder how the villagers ever reach that house (because the terrain looks too rocky and steep to ever convienently climb).
#2. We see a snippet of a nice-looking ruined town, with sky effects and all. But, we don't really get to see enough of the town either to be impressed (it feels like we're just getting a glimpse of like, the outer 5% of it). What I was hoping for in this topic was great layouts and overall design in addition to the aesthetics, but this picture (and a few more to come) are only displaying aesthetics.
#3. Here we get a screenshot that shows an entire town, but the town is really, really small. This is reminiscent of a lot of the Naga towns in the WarCraft III campaign, a few huts and murlocs surrounded by shallow water. The problem with those villages though, was that the houses always looked a little too small compared to the units, which is also the case here. Next, I'm a bit weirded out by how there's sticks with heads floating in the pool in the foreground (also, in real life, those sticks would flip over to their side pretty quickly). And there's a little wizards tower sticking out in the right of the screenshot, heh.
#4. This scene looks great, it has a lot of style with those bulidings on top of the cliff columns (where did he get those doodads anyways? I don't remember em'). I wish there were even more of those buildings, rather than just two! (although for the undead, two big buildings are enough to make sense). But with spiky cliffs everywhere, and the buildings up high over what we can assume is some deadly substance we can't see, the town gives off a very menacing feel. I'm not sure the purple glow in the foreground helps this picture though, it's not completely centered and it doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere (I know it's supposed to be coming from the arch, but the arch graphic doesn't support it, especially with the identical arch in the background not having a purple glow).
#5. Well, it's a little huddle of villagers on some cold, dark night. The village itself looks bland with just houses facing the center, but the picture can somewhat get away with that because we know the people in it are so poor they have to share a fire! (so they can't afford a nice-looking town). But the windmill with wheat growing in the background looks very odd surrounded by snowy fields. And if the village is so poor, why are there so many lit-up braziers outside of the town seemingly welcoming travellers everywhere? A funny extra detail on this one though, there's a couple of women hanging around outside of the town about to get jumped by the guy behind the rock.
#6. Another pretty aesthetically pleasing scene of what appears to be a farming village. There's not really enough houses to make it feel like a town for me, maybe if they had some ones off in the distance to imply that this village continues extending beyond our line of sight or something. At least the fences in the foreground imply there's at least a couple of more houses behind and to the left of the camera. And upon closer look at this picture, we notice some peculiarities, like the windmills are really, really tiny (I mean, they look like they're dwarfed by the houses and trees, when it should be the opposite), and the little wheat field the man from the rightmost house is attending looks like it's just garden-sized.
#7. My first reaction to this was, I thought we were supposed to be sending in towns! This just reminded me right away of Aragorn in that cave of ghosts in the LOTR movies. Getting 100 or so acolytes to all look at the ritual going on in the center is impressive, but I'm not sure those flat steps in the background feel like a town (where did he find those anyways?).
#8. A nice town surrounded by rivers, the first feeling I get from this one is being reminded of older London. Also I was like, "Where'd he get that bridge!!?", but then I figured out it was a clever interplacing of regular bridges and arches. Those bridges really add a lot to this, but the town quickly gets unexciting when we notice every single building looks pratically the same (I didn't know that tavern doodad had varieties in the first place though, that's good to know). And there's an awful lot of open space in between the buildings as well, making the town look pretty incomplete.
#9. Again with this picture my immediate thought is, "This isn't a town!". At first I thought there were no buildings at all, but then I noticed the igloos (which are too small to conceivably let in any of the larger residents). It's a lot more like a cave where everyone is just doing stuff, rather than a living space. But the overall scene looks very interesting with a lot of stuff going on, I wouldn't mind exploring this area at all in any map. Is that a mammoth encased in ice in the background?! 
#10. This is pretty atmospheric! It's a basic concept, but I wish I had thought of this. Over the years, the abandoned town has gotten immersed in sand. A lot of style in this picture. But in execution, the buildings look like they should be scaled up a little bit though, I think if the wanderer walked into the town he'd be half as big as some of the houses. Plus, in the far background to the left and behind the cathedral, there's an area with unnatural block-formations of dark sand. This one's still allright though, it looks cool.
#11. Another really close-up shot, too close for us to really be sure this is really a town. It looks like a couple of isolated buildings next to a waterfall to me! The people living in those houses wouldn't even be able to interact with each other unless they had a bridge offscreen, since the water's all in the way. And the houses are again really small compared to the villagers. So I can't say I like this one much, other than the sky effect.
#12. Y'know, I always thought that log-house model sucked for trying to make something feel like a house. That thing doesn't even have a door under the balcony. Anyways, the scaling in this picture is really confusing to me, because if we only look at the main town, we could imagine the trees being really tall, the statue being really big, and the houses being regular-size. But once we look at the foreground we see a log identical to the houses being dwarfed by a WEED, implying the houses in the town are also capable of being dwarfed by WEEDs. There's a few more weeds in the middle to help us confirm this. And this town suffers from the problem I keep bringing up here, that it doesn't have enough houses to make it feel like more than a gathering.
#13. Wow, this one is really unique, I think he built the entire town of out stacked doodads! And this one actually feels like some kind of town or city too, thanks to the surrounding wall. A very interesting style, something I've never seen before and would definitely want to adventure in. But the potential is ruined by the many large empty spaces we see everywhere - I'm not sure what you could've done to fill them up (sounds very difficult to me), but while they exist they detract away from all the detail put in other parts of the town (like that green beacon in over the entrance of the town, very well placed). That's very unfortunate, I thought this would've been fantastic if the town felt like it was busy or full, rather than barren/empty. The background is also a little weird, the treeline just ends into these two giant green walls that form a corner, but the town itself is impressive enough that no one would worry about that.
#14. Now this is an impressive looking town, it feels very natural and real, with the houses are placed extremely well in relation to the terrain. Some villagers would've added to the feel a bit, but maybe it wasn't clear in the guidelines of this contest that we oughtta have done more than present a great layout, which this picture certainly demonstrates. I mean, the houses along a road, the village being seperated by a river, the town having an altar on top of the hill, and a few buildings facing the river, it all makes sense and looks great. In fact, it reminds me of the actual town from Planet of the Apes, where the apes all lived. My only complaints would be the minor annoyances of the windmill being really small (I'm pretty sure windmills are a lot bigger than houses), what appears to be very tiny ships on this little river/stream (nothing with sails should be navigating water like this), and the targets being placed kinda randomly (is anyone going to really be practicing using their bow standing on the bridge where everyone is walking?). Very good.
#15. Here's a cool-looking scene that might not work in actual gameplay (can units walk on those raised ramps or platforms?), but that doesn't matter here. Still, I don't see how the creator thought this would feel like a "town", that entire area doesn't seem like it's capable of housing even one person. It's more like a series of portals to a few dungeons, or something. But the basic concept is great, if there were only areas of shelter on top of a lot more floating platforms, I could imagine an amazing looking (but very difficult to construct) city.
#16. A valiant attempt at a treetop village! The atmosphere all the purplish-colors and darkness creates makes this place feel pretty mystical. I think it can be very difficult to get houses to look right hanging off of a tree, but this terrainer did a great job - the house in the foreground looks great and the buildings in the background all look like they're connected and supported by wooden structuring. And wow, in the farther background we can see even more trees surrounded by treetop houses! That's pretty amazing. How does anyone get up to these houses though, with the giant statue in the way?
Well anyways, one of the things I noticed was that the houses in the foreground looked an awful lot more natural than the houses in the background. It took me a while to figure out, but it's because the foreground houses have a bunch of big bushes and logs blocking out the buildings' huge bottoms, making it look like they're actually built on top of the wooden structuring! I don't know why this wasn't done for the houses in the background, because as of now, at a first glance, they can look way too heavy to be supported by the wooden walkways (because of how big their bottoms are and how small the walkways are). If they had just added the bushes and logs to the background houses as well, making the walkways look bigger and the houses look smaller...Argh.
#17. I can't say I know what's going on in this picture. Is this a town or a mine? I know sometimes, like in FF6, they build towns into the mines, but this one just doesn't have enough buildings (and the buildings aren't big enough compared to the mining equipment and dwarves) to give off that town-vibe. Seriously, in this cave only like a small part of one of the many walls has any buildings. A decent-looking cave though.
#18. Here's an aesthetically pleasing scene, a great sky combined with rain, neatly placed houses, and flowery courtyards. And thanks to creating a kind of skyline with the taller houses in the background, this place easily feels like it has enough to be a big town or a city. Those houses don't actually have doors pointing into the street, but the terrainer does a good job of hiding that fact with the trees and the tank(??...buggy?). I think the bottom-right corner of this screen is what hurts this scene though, it's just a big empty space. I know for a shot at this angle we had to keep that space clear to see the cathedral, but it looks very awkward that in a town that appears very full in the background, to have a major road just end with nothing. The empty spaces surrounding the cathedral is also a little troublesome, but still understandable. Also I was thinking the skyline ends a little bit abruptly, I'm wondering what could be over to the far left or right sides that's preventing houses from being there (because from this scene the town feels like it should be at least big enough to cover those areas).
#19. My first thoughts: "Whoa, did they intentionally save this one for last?". This picture really gives off a great first impression, since you notice all the walls, spikes, and giant castle, and then all the people and fires and everything going on below, and you really think this is like a busy city getting ready for war. That mood feels pretty epic, and thus the city feels pretty epic as well, doesn't it? The town at the bottom itself seems decently constructed, there's a lot of big empty spaces and typical house layouts, but it isn't easily noticed because of all the people and stuff on the streets. The castle in the background looks great from this shot (are those scout towers that are making up the towers? they look oddly different from ones I've been using). And I like that tree-covered mountain over to the right, it's a great background detail that adds to the epic feel of this city.
However, if we look at this city pretty closely we'll see a number of minor grievances. I mean, there's a random wizard's tower just kinda sticking out in front of the castle, behind the castle wall. To me it looks awkward just because it's so much smaller than the castle is. The guard towers in the foreground look like they're too short to shoot over the wall, and the wall surrounding the city doesn't appear to cover the rightmost part of the city where the forest-covered mountain is. The fountain at the left is halfway into the street, and the giant statues around the castle aren't placed very symetrically. Even if the statues were intentionally meant to be placed randomly, the two on the left show us how cool it'd look if those things were surrounding the castle wall, facing outwards and being supported by the spikes. So a missed opportunity there. Heh, those are a lot of nitpicks, but that goes to show how much stuff was going on in this picture.
Summary
So, in summary I would say numbers 14, 16, and 19 stand out as being the best of these selections for me. 19 has an amazing epic and warlike mood and atmosphere (plus it's one of the few cities, rather than towns), 16 was a great job done on a difficult-to-execute concept, and 14's superior layout and attention to detail makes it just look overall very natural, appealing, and real. Good luck then!
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Well anyways, one of the things I noticed was that the houses in the foreground looked an awful lot more natural than the houses in the background. It took me a while to figure out, but it's because the foreground houses have a bunch of big bushes and logs blocking out the buildings' huge bottoms, making it look like they're actually built on top of the wooden structuring! I don't know why this wasn't done for the houses in the background, because as of now, at a first glance, they can look way too heavy to be supported by the wooden walkways (because of how big their bottoms are and how small the walkways are). If they had just added the bushes and logs to the background houses as well, making the walkways look bigger and the houses look smaller...Argh.
However, if we look at this city pretty closely we'll see a number of minor grievances. I mean, there's a random wizard's tower just kinda sticking out in front of the castle, behind the castle wall. To me it looks awkward just because it's so much smaller than the castle is. The guard towers in the foreground look like they're too short to shoot over the wall, and the wall surrounding the city doesn't appear to cover the rightmost part of the city where the forest-covered mountain is. The fountain at the left is halfway into the street, and the giant statues around the castle aren't placed very symetrically. Even if the statues were intentionally meant to be placed randomly, the two on the left show us how cool it'd look if those things were surrounding the castle wall, facing outwards and being supported by the spikes. So a missed opportunity there. Heh, those are a lot of nitpicks, but that goes to show how much stuff was going on in this picture.
Summary
So, in summary I would say numbers 14, 16, and 19 stand out as being the best of these selections for me. 19 has an amazing epic and warlike mood and atmosphere (plus it's one of the few cities, rather than towns), 16 was a great job done on a difficult-to-execute concept, and 14's superior layout and attention to detail makes it just look overall very natural, appealing, and real. Good luck then!
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