I never really understood publishers forcing developers to release their products before they're clearly finished. I understand that some projects go deeply over time and I guess it might be responsible to release the product in those cases. Stuff like this and Sword of the Stars II felt like if they only had a month or two more of development they would have released a much better product however.
A couple weeks could have made the difference of about 40 metacritic points and there would have been a lot less people demanding a refund.
This has always annoyed me about Paradox, they make some awesome games but they seem to really put the pressure on other devs to
release on time that has destroyed a whole bunch of games. See Gettysburg or Swar of the Stars II.
I'm not really sure how you can combat games going over time, I assume sometimes it just happens. I wish they would just slap a sticker on the store page saying "GAME STILL IN DEVELOPMENT, BUY TO SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS", it would really stop a lot of the hate towards the project, the publisher and the developer. Consumers don't seem to be negative towards buying a half-finished project as long as they're promised a finished product.
As for the whole Steam not offering refund thing, it's just bollocks. Any decent country with any decent consumer protection laws can easily get a refund. Steam hiding this fact behind their annoying little EULA should be internationally condemned. Steam's power in the market place has been a great thing for consumers but now with their deathgrip it seems things might start to get worse for the consumers.