It always makes me sad when a fun game's multiplayer community fails to reach critical mass in the early stages of its release and then dries up almost entirely, thus killing the lasting enjoyment that could have been had by those who did get into it.  This is a near constant on services like Xbox Live Arcade, but it occasionally afflicts a solid retail release as well.  Transformers: War for Cybertron, released just two weeks ago, is quickly becoming one such title.  My interest in this game was initially piqued by Arthur Gies' discussion of the multiplayer on the RebelFM podcast.  While I'm 30 and remember watching the G1 cartoon as a kid, I've never been a huge fan of this IP.  But Arthur's descriptions of some of his early game play experiences sounded really exciting.  After eventually reading his review I was sold.  I pre-ordered from Amazon, played through the campaign co-op with two friends, and then dove into multiplayer.
 
I immediately noticed that on a weekday night at 9:00 PM there were barely 10,000 players online a week after release.  If I sneak a few matches before leaving for work in the morning it's about 1,200.  I don't know if the blame lies mostly with Activision's lack of marketing for the title or the poor quality of previous games on the license or where, but this tremendously fun arena shooter is going criminally overlooked.  Ah well, I guess I'll go back to Bad Company 2 soon.  What a shame though.  Regarding XBLA multiplayer communities (on rather, the inevitable lack thereof) I have heard it said that there are just too many releases for any one game to hold a player pool.  I realize not every game is Halo 2, which had 3,000 daily players when the servers were decommissioned six years on, but it makes me sad that I can't even enjoy the awesome and original "Countdown to Extinction" game type in T:WfC a mere 14 days after launch.  We just came out of a 2xXP weekend, and that mode was averaging about 100 players throughout.  The last time I turned the game on, there were 0.

It always makes me sad when a fun game's multiplayer community fails to reach critical mass in the early stages of its release and then dries up almost entirely, thus killing the lasting enjoyment that could have been had by those who did get into it.  This is a near constant on services like Xbox Live Arcade, but it occasionally afflicts a solid retail release as well.  Transformers: War for Cybertron, released just two weeks ago, is quickly becoming one such title.  My interest in this game was initially piqued by Arthur Gies' discussion of the multiplayer on the RebelFM podcast.  While I'm 30 and remember watching the G1 cartoon as a kid, I've never been a huge fan of this IP.  But Arthur's descriptions of some of his early game play experiences sounded really exciting.  After eventually reading his review I was sold.  I pre-ordered from Amazon, played through the campaign co-op with two friends, and then dove into multiplayer.
 
I immediately noticed that on a weekday night at 9:00 PM there were barely 10,000 players online a week after release.  If I sneak a few matches before leaving for work in the morning it's about 1,200.  I don't know if the blame lies mostly with Activision's lack of marketing for the title or the poor quality of previous games on the license or where, but this tremendously fun arena shooter is going criminally overlooked.  Ah well, I guess I'll go back to Bad Company 2 soon.  What a shame though.  Regarding XBLA multiplayer communities (on rather, the inevitable lack thereof) I have heard it said that there are just too many releases for any one game to hold a player pool.  I realize not every game is Halo 2, which had 3,000 daily players when the servers were decommissioned six years on, but it makes me sad that I can't even enjoy the awesome and original "Countdown to Extinction" game type in T:WfC a mere 14 days after launch.  We just came out of a 2xXP weekend, and that mode was averaging about 100 players throughout.  The last time I turned the game on, there were 0.

Yeah, it's a real shame when any game's multiplayer dies.

The population does seem stupid low for what it is two weeks after release. I guess the game didn't sell so well.
 
What is even sadder is me buying Red Faction: Guerilla on steam during the summer sales for $5 and not being able to find 5 other people to play with in any game mode. It took like 15 mins of searching to get into a game of 6 people!

Every time I've gotten online the player count hovers between 8,000 and 10,000. While this isn't astronomical I've never had any problems getting into a match of any kind. I'll agree that Activision marketed this game not at all so the sales arn't likely to be very good. It seems to have been shoveled out with Singularity with no support since neither were their reiterated sequel cash cows. Which is a real shame because both appear to be quality pieces of work.

Personally, I love playing the multiplayer, but after the fifth or sixth match of the whole game dropping because the host does, I usually give up for the day.

I think the pool of multiplayer gamers has been extremely diluted recently, as well. When you consider that there are three major multiplayer platforms between PC/360/PS3, big multiplayer releases coming out constantly, and gamers' tendency to jump from release to release and it's no wonder that the non-flagship releases don't keep enough of a player base around to keep them healthy. 
 
 Believe me, I understand. I recently had a similar experience with Bioshock 2's multiplayer dying on the vine. Doesn't seem to be a lot that can be done about it other than keeping your money riding on the dozen or so healthy multiplayer games with the majority of the players

"Doesn't seem to be a lot that can be done about it other than keeping your money riding on the dozen or so healthy multiplayer games with the majority of the players "

It always irritates me when I see this. I too enjoy Transformers, but a few of the modes have fewer than 100 people playing at some times of night. This is something that I've only started noticing since I switched to consoles (from PC). On PC even the most obscure 8 year old games will have enough players to jump in, but on consoles it seems like if you're not Call of Duty or Halo there's no one around.

Seems like any game that's not huge like MW2 or halo usually are less than 10k. Blur only has around 1200 on at most times, as long as I can find a match I'm good.

Finding a group to do Left 4 Dead on expert is like this.  And trying to play on some specific map packs for some games is a no-no (advatage of this: you can pre arrange with a buddy to use a certain map pack for a ranked match and be near garunteed to him/her.  One example of this is to use Brutal Ledgends - Hammers of Infinate Fate DLC map pack to acheivement grind.  Unfortunalty, there aren't many people willing to lose more than a few games in a row).
 
My best suggestion, is on games where you can host, host.  That way you can garuntee your lobby/match will run through to the end - when you've had enough.

Try playing this on PS3. I have seen it peak at around 5000 players online.

I rented it, played about an hour and a half of multiplayer, wasn't very fun for me.
 
Sucks for those that bought/enjoy it though.

all you console players make me so jealous... i bought WFC for the PC cuzz im a KB+Mouse gangster from the old Shogo CS pre1.0 Quake 2 arena shooter days and i'd bust a nut if i saw 5k players in the pool... I see a MAX of 300 players online during peak hours. and its a GREAT day if i dont have to play Team Deathmatch... usually 80% of the online pop sits in Team DM and the other 20% of the pool sits in Conquest.

 
I aggree with you 100%  This is by far, the best Transformers game avaiable, and should have been pushed a bit more.  The multiplayer is allright, but takes forever to find a match due to lack of players.