The enemy AI get better, but still no more than reasonable coordinated player teams would be.

And the friendlies are so much better it's almost like playing a different game.

I only tried this at level 13 - I'd heard the enemy AI gets super-aggressive and kills you when you're down more - they'll still go for active opponents as a clear preference over an incapacitated enemy, though, so if you're working with your team, this isn't an issue - only when you go lone-wolf.

But right from the first minute, your team will be working to achieve objectives, and if you do your part, buffing allies, distracting enemies, keeping the front lines moving forward, whatever suits your playstyle best - I guarantee you the game will be MUCH more rewarding than it can be at lower difficulty levels - even if you don't win, it feels more like you lost because you deserved it, not because the friendly AI didn't want to be worth the effort.

Friendly Medics on Normal would beeline straight at you if they chose the healing mission - ignoring enemies and dying as they charge blindly. Easy? Same deal - nobody would ever make it through even a single enemy near your incapacitated body.

On Hard, the same Medic will have you as an objective, but he'll stop and blast a few shots, either taking down the enemy, or at the very least making them take cover - then use the opening he's given himself to toss you a syringe before turning back to the fight. Seriously, they're SO much better at playing the game.

And you can ignor the primary objectives if they don't suit your chosen class - stick to Medic, and if you do well, the rest of the team will do their part too, and you've still got a good chance of success.

The issue I've had on normal was the ai allies wouldn't guard the main objective, the basically left me to guard on my own and when there's like 6 enemies coming to capture the guard objective it's really hard on your own. Does hard more help this?

It did for me.

Friendly AI actually performing an objective are more likely to try and perform the objective under fire if they have backup and Medics than they would be on Medium (where you're lucky enough to see them give the objective a second glance.

And on defense, they'll make sure you have the numbers at the objective guarding before considering secondary objectives.

I have this exact same issue. I'm going to try this right now with the one mission I haven't been able to pass.
I thought that on lower difficulty levels my team AI would be better and the enemy AI would be weaker, but my team doesn't help guard objectives at all and even on easy, the opposing team will gang up on me while my team runs around capturing command posts or sitting there with their thumb up their bums. It's so frustrating!

Partner AI is dumb.

I just did a game where an Operative needed to hack something...for 3 whole minutes...an operative just stood there at the area you needed to hack...

Hard doesn't totally fixe friendly AI...

But it gives them a HUGE boost compared with Easy or Normal.

Seriously, give it a try.

Be prepared to have the enemy actively killing you when you're the nearest threat though - they don't let you get away with camping under their feet incapacitated any more (not that it did any good when your Medic friends did nothing to help)

ROFL, good example of tactical awareness not working on Enemy Ai, I was on the prison map playing security, I was using the SMG nest to keep the enemy at bay after awhile there were 2 Ai prancing back and forth in my side view shooting down into the field, naturally I was thinking it was my AI team mates shooting at the enemy in field, to my surprise when I got off the SMG nest gun and saw it was 2 enemy AI firing down into field i was LIKE WTF?!?!? they were there for a good 2 minutes and they never once shot at me, lol.

I think they already changed the AI. On easy it is now Easy! They go for objectives and things they did,t do last days!