It's definitely better with friends. I'm really enjoying the MP and SP at the moment, not tried any co-op.
If people want friends, the GAF Squad now has 5 members, just going to keep adding to it. Doesn't have to be hardcore players, just people who want others to play with for GRFS.
I played some with JohnRanger56, just myself and him, and just having one person to work with made the game instantly better.
I went back to GRAW2 after playing some GRFS and it feels very sluggish and old in comparison to GRFS. While GRFS certainly isn't the greatest sequel, and may stray even further from the Ghost Recon routes, it does feel like a good evolution of it. Still some glitches and issues they need to to fix in MP, but (despite them jacking us with the DLC) I think I will get the Arctic Strike DLC as more of this game, with hopefully some title updates, and it is/will be a great change from COD.