Most know the term “deathmatch” as being created by id’s John Romero and John Carmack for the classic competitive mode from Doom, released back in the day. It is odd and baffling for the term to not return in their latest title, but it really didn’t. All we got was 2-player co-op through different missions, which is light-years away from the competitive concept of the original deathmatch. You can say that RAGE also features 6-player race combat matches, but this isn’t what id is known for.
"We have always said we wanted to do something different with Rage," said Tim Willits, id Software creative director. "We didn't want RAGE to follow the same pattern of our other titles; we wanted it to be unique amongst our IPs."
"The easy path would have been to create a classic deathmatch game but if no one takes risks anymore the entire industry will begin to get stagnate," Willits said. "I think gamers are quite shrewd these days and appreciate developers trying to explore new game types that aren't done in every other title they release. The response to our multiplayer offering has been quite positive and I'm happy we did something different."
While I agree that it’s different, co-op missions have been done before (spec-ops in Modern Warfare 2 and the upcoming third installment), and combat races are… just combat races.
Source: Kotaku