I created a web project with maven like this:
mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=my-webapp -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-web
You should explicitly mention in your pom.xml that the maven-eclipse-plugin should generate a WTP-project. A simple example, which should be in your pom.xml at the build-part, would be:
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-eclipse-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<wtpmanifest>true</wtpmanifest>
<wtpapplicationxml>true</wtpapplicationxml>
<wtpversion>2.0</wtpversion>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
Did you jump from the create command to the eclipse:eclipse command?
Check out this link. You need to edit your POM first, then call "mvn clean package". After you do that, THEN try the "mvn eclipse:eclipse".
You can also use mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=2.0
to generate all WTP meta-data for the project without changing the POM.
Of course, you'd have to change the WTP version if you are using an older version of Eclipse.
Just install a development version of m2eclipse and your project will be used as a maven project, no need to do mvn eclipse:eclipse or anything like that. I use it and works.
http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/