If a game is announced, takes many many years to come out, and it feels shallow/rushed/unpolished/bad nevertheless, and you're asking yourself "what did they spend all this time doing," the answer is almost always rebooting production multiple times
As an addendum in this specific case since I think it wasn't widely picked up on at the time (certainly I didn't hear any chatter, at least), giant Singaporean government subsidies straight up requiring delivery of a new IP may also go a long way to explaining why this game didn't end up on the chopping block despite its protracted history unlike multiple other games shown off during that period that notably wound up canned.
