I don't see how the two situations are anything other than... exactly compatible? Both Kingdom Hearts and Half-Life are both unfinished narratives. The only difference is that one company confirmed a sequel so early in the development cycle that they've got trout all else to say while the other has just decided to say nothing. To describe them as "lying bastards" just reeks for fan entitlement.
As for Wolf Kanno's points, I can totally sympathize. It definitely sucks to see a game slowly become vaporware due to unexpected and (relatively) unexplained delays, and I can also understand why confidence is shaken in their success. Shying away from a day one purchase is an entirely reasonable response.
My question to both of you is this, though: at this point, with all of that behind us, what do you expect Square Enix to do differently? When it comes down to it, fact of the matter is that these delays have happened. From a marketing perspective, does giving us news now if it's really not the best time to do so really make the situation better? In the case of Kingdom Hearts 3 specifically, is it really beneficial for them to start showing us alpha or maybe even pre-alpha builds? Has that ever resulted in anything other than disappointment later? Even FFXIV: ARR, which has been incredibly successful from a marketing and customer relations standpoint did not widely start sharing information until we were into open beta. KH3 doesn't have the luxury of engaging its fans in pre-beta stages, and if they start making promises on content that isn't finalized, they run the risk of making the problem worse.
Obviously Square Enix has mismanaged a lot of its titles over the past decade. Final Fantasy XIII was the first in the series that I sold back as soon as it was completed, and I never even bothered to pick up either of its sequels. Final Fantasy XIV was virtually unplayable when I bought the collector's edition at launch, and it took over a year and praise from a lot of people whose opinions I really trust to make me head back and give it a try again.
I'm not arguing that Square Enix hasn't damaged their brand (they clearly have); I'm just saying that from the developer's perspective, releasing too much information now runs too high a risk of damaging that brand further. As much as it sucks, if they're not ready to reveal things, it's probably better that they don't.