Leading up to Portal 2's release, with the potato promotion, a still unfinished "Kick It!" was involved as part of the promotion, with users needing to obtain a certain ingame achievement. However, it was not at all made clear to users that this game was still in alpha. Tons of users had a bad experience, and a game that wasn't even really intended to be played yet ended up getting exposed to the games industry at large, of course, with a horrible reception.
Please don't let the delay overly worry you. Here's what the great master Shigeru Miyamoto said: "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever." (from: http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto/Quotes).
Of course, you could do 'updates' but you have to make a good impression with your first cut.