Just logged off of Emerald for the night. Yeah, I came back for the new DX support and the game seems to have picked up a good bit. The NSops have helped mitigate overpop as well. I'd say give it a reinstall and see for yourself.
I tried to recruit players about 6 months ago without success. Since the DX11 update it's improved alot and have been able to recruit 4x players straight away. Theyv'e added new guns and generally have supported the game very well indeed. They (Devs) I feel are listening and doing. So well happy.
I don't know about NA servers but the European ones are fairly populated at all times. There is no way you won't find big battles on prime time.