Well, I think that is actually quite common. People bite off more than they can chew per say in pretty much every industry. The saying, 'fake it till you make it' exists even.

Once the realization that a project is a failure though, that is when the project should die. Milking it past that point is highly unethical.

So the question is, is the game anything like what it was marketed as and has there been periodic improvements to get to that point if not.