Can FIVE of us play Alien Swarm

[NeilF]

If I host a game, can I have myself and four friends (five of us) all playing at the same time?

The reason I ask is I tested setting up a hosted game with just myself, and even though I set the number of players to 8, I could only select 3 NPC soldiers, so there only four of us in effect?

[immortius]

From memory when there are 5 (or more) actual human player the maximum limit is extended. Someone who actually has played Alien Swarm in the last year or two should be able to confirm this?

[BiG_D]

You can play with up to 8 people. The AI's can be selected so you always have 4 marines (once you've got 4 or more people in the game, you're limited to one marine each.)

[Felix]

All the manuals are here