I mean, true, but also note that the endings aren't something you play, either.
Hence, playable from beginning to end. (A lot of games have literally no endings either, and yet are considered playable from beginning to end.)
We did in fact say publicly multiple times that we 99% expected it to fail. We still submitted it though, not as an excuse of making a deadline, but because we wanted to get stuff cleared out of the way in terms of potential failing points when we submitted the next time. (And it definitely did reveal a few potential failing points, so it was worth it.)
So I'm not really sure I'd consider that deceptive if we've been fully up front about how we're handling it.
Plus, to us, the submission deadline was never "a deadline to not miss", as in, it's not the game being out, which is what really matters. We're still sticking to the 30th of November regarding that, no matter what is or isn't complete.