Fake number of active players!?

Right now, Steam says there are at least 8,000 active players. I decided to buy the game for the THIRD TIME, thinking it was actually alive this time, but there are only two 64-player matches—where is everyone??? Lots of YouTube videos claim the game is very much alive, so either they're lying, or there's a specific way to find matches...
Does anyone know what's going on?