Dragonrock
Militant Elvisian Tacoist
I'd rather have seen them release a solid game built around the Tidepool phase some months ago. Then release sequels (or whatever they want to call them) each built on subsequent phases as they are finished. No patching necessary. No waiting necessary.
That's a good idea. Each game would not quite be stand-alone. You need the previous one to play the next one. Then you could play as far as they had gotten to at that point. It would probably have made them more money sort of like how Sims has done.