I personally think the writing is fine as it is for a game of this size. There are many good novels out there that you would find not so compelling if you had only a third of the whole story in hand. And it's exactly what we got in EA. So stating the writing is bad without having the full arc of certain characters is kind of premature.
I hate to break it to you, but beta readers and editors do precisely this a great deal of the time. Creatives rarely produce good copy initially. The process usually involves distilling things toward their most primal elements (chapters, scenes, and arcs) going over the chemistry then pooling it back together to see how it all looks. Sausages and novels are made in much the same way ;P
EDIT: Also, sticking the landing doesn't excuse a poor launch. In bits or as a whole everything needs to work.
