Is there a way to play with ACTUAL people in unite?

Yep.

Log in and play around the daily reset time. You can find reals in quicks and casuals. Just depends on how many people are on. Around the daily reset though, you have a higher chance of going up against real people because they are more than likely doing their daily missions.

Play ranked at almost any time if the day. Once you make it Veteran class, then you'll be playing mostly against reals.

Good advice, but I get it that the game feels empty for lower ranks... and in fact it is, new players are rare and don't usually stay for long... that's mostly why the game is slowly getting less relevant.

Like I said before, I believe it will last at least a couple more years, after that probably even in higher ranks finding real playera will be hard.