I'm sure this has been answered already so my apologies ...

can anyone confirm or deny this. (in MP) does the system automatically fill in the gaps with bots so the map isn't empty? besides the obvious "WTF was that moments" the screen names make it a little obvious.

hmmm. not sure how I feel about this.

POV anyone?

Yes, once you start a match it gives a few seconds for players to join in, if nobody joins then the match will start with you and the rest bots. Humans can join as the game is going on but very few times do you actually get a lot of human players. Most of the time itll be 2 or 3 human players beside you in a match and the rest bots.

If you are on PC, you can search for a server that is mostly populated by human players.