(Console Version)
 
So yeah. I've only had this game a day, and already I've gotten into about a half dozen games that were 4 vs. 9, or around that. Every time, it stayed that way from the start of the match, until the end, and it never evened out the teams. I couldn't even find a way to manually switch to the team with less players. So even if I wanted to be a good sport about it, and change teams, I couldn't.
 
This is beyond bad. It's aggressively bad. I'm not even going to go into all the other stuff about this game that are pretty broken. I think the fact that it doesn't auto-balance speaks volumes about this game. None of which is good. It's like I've gone back to the Stone Age of FPS gaming.

Server admins decision whether to have auto balance (pc version). It works rather well.

" Server admins decision whether to have auto balance (pc version). It works rather well. "

Huh, I know there's no autobalance on consoles, but its very rare that I find a significantly unbalanced match on the 360. At worst, I'll get 9 vs 12 or something. One point is that when games start getting unbalanced, I think matchmaking throws up a red flag to bring in new players onto the smaller team as fast as possible. If your game is unbalanced, you can quit and search for a new game, and chances are you'll get pulled back into the same game, but on the smaller team. Heck, several times I've ragequit out of games, only to be pulled back into the same one because the teams needed balancing.

I guess it doesn't do auto-balance in the matches because it will ruin the squads that are already playing together.  If the game doesn't have the squad-system, then the auto-balance thing will work.  But I think new entry players without a squad are usually placed on a team with lesser players to balance it out.

Modern Warfare 2 doesn't automatically auto balance teams. But then again, a player joins the match and fills the empty slot almost as soon as it's available, so I guess this is a problem.

The game does auto-balance teams, but it will only do this with players that aren't in a party/squad with friends.  I play on PS3, and I haven't experienced drastically unbalanced teams with great frequency.

The game does not auto-balance in the lobby per say, but if you are in a game that is 8 on 12, a player that is in the main menu and choses the quick match option under the multiplayer tab is more likely to fill that empty spot. I play the 360 version and I find that if the match is not balanced, it always seems to fill with players throughout the game, thus balancing the match. If you play this game late at night, that's another story and I would suggest to not play this game past midnight because auto-balance is a huge issue due to the lack of players at that time.

I run into this quite a bit as I tend to play late at night and into the AM. You'll commonly get into a game that has only a dozen players or so and it can become comically unbalanced. It isn't uncommon for it to end up with one against six or even one team with no one on it. I've had a couple of Rush games where we were just able to take every objective with absolutely no resistance. While I can understand they can't pull people out of their squads and such this is a serious issue at less than peak hours.

"I play on PS3, and I haven't experienced drastically unbalanced teams with great frequency. "

I agree MAST. I've played the 360 version for a few months now and I had the exact same experience as you. I think in regards to the 8 players versus 1 problem Dice are betting on the high number of players entering and moving from game to game to fill out games the majority of the time. This seems to me a hands off approach that ultimately detracts from the game which is a shame because Bad Company 2 is responsible for some of my best gaming experiences. While overhauling this part of the game would probably be a monumental task, a game that trades on it's multiplayer can do no less if it wishes to stay relevant. It would be nice if DICE put more resources into making the core game seamless rather than add expansions that may make matters worse - sadly I think this won't happen and reflects a greater problem in the industry.