I think that the chances of intelligent life, as or even greater intelligence than ours is almost certain due to the sheer vastness of the universe. The sad thing is, most likely our planet will never communicate with other said intelligent life due to the very same thing...the vastness of the universe. Even at light speed the distances are nearly unfathomable.

Unless we get some form of communication or transportation thats so highly advanced that time/distance mean nothing in regards to it we just won't be able to communicate with any said species. Unless we are just astronomically lucky and intelligent life can be found at one of our closest stars.

Really I don't think it far fetched to make the guess that there is probably at least one highly intelligent form of life in each galaxy.

Just any form of life is proabably highly common in the universe though, the more primitive the more common. Though I imagine there are a lot of planets that animal life has reached dog/cat level of intelligence.