[Kithsuneca]

There could have been other players in spectator mode or waiting to play. Its not listed in the scoreboard on the top, but sort of on the bottom., and your friends may have missed that.

True, that could be a possibility. But usually when a server is full it'll show you everyone whose in the game but also say that server is full. Unless steam has updated where it only says server is not responding now, but I remember that even if the server was full, it would still show a whole list of people in game who were playing. Plus the Join game button would be grayed out.

I did however try to join again a few times more during the past few hours and still unable to join server because it'll pop up the error message "Server Not Responding" I'll wait a bit longer to see if I'll be able to join in a bit. If not I'll pop into the forums and post here again after I ask my friends to check to see if the server is too full and see whose spectating.