Disregarding that this is indeed a game, the MG42 had significant weaknesses in areas where the maxim had strengths and vice versa.
While the MG42 had a RoF that was literally stunning, it could not fire continuously. It also required barrel reloads and a large heavy gun. This was further compounded by the need for numerous team members to operate the gun. It was however superb at its job, suppression.
The maxim, while heavy, was able to fire almost constantly as long as ammo was available. It was therefore far more effective as an automatic rifle, able to lay fairly accurate rounds on target for long periods. It was designed to sweep back and forth, effectively forever so it could mow down advancing waves of humans, aka WWI battles. It was generally reliable and easy to make so it was useful.
While these two guns are technically MG's they function in very different roles in the battlefield. The 42 is technologically a jump from the Maxim, but both guns have very potent impact when used correctly. After WWII the introduction of large scale semi automatic and automatic rifles make the maxim redundant.
The Maxim was an outdated heavy machine gun design even before the first world war, well, it wasn't out-dated back then but still, by WW2 standards it is outdated.
As Vipper pointed out, air-cooled was the way to go, you had a lighter weight MG that could fire from both a bipod, tripod and vehicle mount and could be operated by 2 guys, 1 carrying the MG itself while the other carried the ammo or tripod if the unit was issued with such. Ammo was not a problem since the German squad was focused on the MG so all of the riflemen basically carried ammo for the MG, not to mention the rounds were the same.
The only real thing you needed as a German MG gunner was a good position and access to ammo basically, extra barrels were carried by either you or your loader and could be changed in under 20 seconds by a crack crew, that's the window most Allied infantry used to attack the MG's position as well since the MG only stopped to fire either because it ran out of ammo and needs to reload or because the barrel overheated and needed to be changed.
While the Maxim and it's derivatives required more men to carry them because they were heavy due to their water cooled jacket, making battlefield mobility for them a problem, and the Soviet Maxim gun couldn't always be push on it's carriage due to the terrain unlike the German MGs which like I said, could be carried by a single guy.
Hell the only machine guns that could be hip and shoulder fired even were the German MGs, well them and the American M1919A4s that is, the M1919A6s being the LMG variants which are not HMGs so for the sake of this discussion I will not include them here. John Basilone in the Pacific Front being one of the few rare instances of someone being able to effectively carry and hipfire the heavier Browning M1917 water cooled machine gun.
I still believe the German MGs were superior to any other HMGs during the entire war, only seconded by the American M1919 and it's many different variants, the BAR and Bren weren't really that much LMG weapons since they were designed for "walking fire" and not designed to be LMGs like the German MGs were.
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