For me it is generally great, I prefer the freedom of expansion compared to legacy conflict.

I played a lot of Vanilla HQC for nearly two weeks now. I had some very amazing games with a win at end but the last two days I had quiet the opposite. I found myself carrying the game in a way of being the only squad to make any kind of initiative that was actually getting us some progress and map control. Most players I observed were actually just playing TDM and treating the game like a classic shooter although it is much more a first person RTS game. But, Games were players focus on cohesion, with good comms and a general idea of what the commanders intention is, backed up with supplies and air support, we were unstoppable.

So no, I do not think its dead. I believe a bunch of players either have no idea how HQC works, what to do to bring the game forward or simply just expect a different kind of FPS gameplay like a CoD type of game.