Yes, as much as something like the thousands of little bugs in something like Fallout 3 (to give a "big company" example) are annoying, those are massive, massive games and the bugs are usually just minor problems that affect small parts of the game. I can see how they were missed (though it's ridiculous that fans find and 'patch' these often months before the devs!).
In this case, the entire game won't run. Period. Telltale's past games have all at least started... it's the sort of thing you NEED to get right. Do they have beta testers? I'd be happy to be one, if it helped prevent this sort of thing.
I wonder if Telltale - and this isn't meant disrespectfully - knew what they were getting into with a Walking Dead game? From what I've read, the game is good... but The Walking Dead has a HUGE fanbase. This is a very important title for them to get right (look at how many threads are on this board saying "this is my first Telltale game" or "never played point and click games before... what else should I buy?". The WD fanbase (especially mainstream now thanks to the TV show) is much larger than Monkey Island or Sam and Max, so doing things like ignoring Aussie fans and releasing a game that doesn't run on many people's computers either at all or unless you search a forum for help isn't a good thing.
Can I ask, Telltale, if the Steam version works (disconnected) where the standalone doesn't, are you going to offer it to all your customers who bought the standalone version (which I bought to better support Telltale and avoid Steam in the first place) so they can at least play what they purchased while you patch the standalone release's major bug? I don't want a free lunch, but I do expect to be able to play what I paid for and not have to spend money to troubleshoot a product.
I've scanned a few topics here and it's most worrying that there seems to be no offer of redress for those with this problem, no real suggestions to fix it (the "disconnect your internet" seems to only work for the Steam version) and not even any news except one "help us troubleshoot this".
Heck, I'd say "just refund me and I'll buy it on Xbox", but again... Australian.
Oh, and the most worrying part is: I normally buy the "full season" with Telltale, but a demo at least (if not the first ep available alone, like all other Telltale releases) would have alerted me to wait and not buy a game that doesn't run yet. With no way (no PC demo?!) to "try before you buy", I had to use my past trust of Telltale to blind buy the whole series... trust that sadly seems to have been a mistake.