It's the latter.
Steam can kiss my ass... that out of the way, they *do have *full release blurbs by devs instead of cliff notes.
The highlights of Lavapotion's release concerning this:
"[...] So we’re introducing something we call Tales of Conquest in the form of DLC, releasing roughly every quarter. These Tales will move the story of Songs of Conquest forward, as well as expand our gameplay, through story missions following each one of the existing factions. [...] We’re planning to release Rise Eternal this Fall. It will be a paid DLC, and it will bring new artifacts, set bonuses, and general improvements to the Risen of Loth. And the sweet thing is that most of these things will be added to the base game for free so that everyone can enjoy the hordes of the loyal Risen, even if you don’t choose to buy the DLC."

I don't know how games are made and don't really care, the same way you don't (I assume, sorry) care a single drop how computers, cellphones or cars are made. As a end consumer, don't want to know about the "industry" or how it ticks (I actually do, but that's beside this post), what I want is to by a finished product, simple as that.

With that said, there's a few games that were a bit more successful than anticipated and release a few DLC's, such as Hollow Knight or Battle Brothers. I choose these two games as an exemple because in Hollow Knight's case, the DLC add pretty much nothing to the game or the experience and will cost 18 Euros to by the package but in Battle Brothers, well, let's say that without the DLC's it's not even the same game and it amounts to 65€ to buy the full package, excluding the banners wich will add more 20€.
I love both games but if one need to monetise the heck of the DLC's and othe game don't, something is wrong here.

When entire companies are working with selling DLC's (like Paradox), I can say that what is wrong is the GaMeRs way of accepting every single piece of garbage that is throw in their direction.

The lesson to take from this is that trying to have some communication and transparency is a bad idea.

Lavapot should basically not have told anyone that they are working on this DLC, but waited to announce it until the release date in the autumn. Noone would have raised an eyebrow then.

If you want to pay for extra content, do. If you don't, don't.

I think I just solved the universe.

You're "sure"? Well, if Ancient-Red-Dragon is sure, then...
Could you point out where it said that "It will be four maps and that's all it will be, nothing more."

It's listed as Coming Soon—when did those ever have a price listing?

I'm not what you'd call Independently wealthy, but capping the reasonable cost of a DLC for a game like this at $5 seems more than slightly ridiculous, especially without knowing its contents.

Clearly this is a nod to Homm3 and its Hero Chronicles. I'm hopeful they are low cost since they're just going to be single player campaign expansions. Can't wait for the major expansion next year though.

I wonder if the campaign expansions will include new songs for each one - the music is really good in the original campaigns.

Good catch, being thinking of Doarth Waiderr recently. (alongside "Rogue One Story" finale)

Sure, that's why early access titles are labeled as such. However, if someone is going to complain about DLC being released they should understand what they're actually complaining about instead of spouting off from a position of ignorance. It's clear that most (all?) of the people shrieking about DLC don't have the game. Yes, I've seen DLC that was pointless, but some that was reasonable. (Never bought the Hollow Knight DLC.) In this case the DLCs make sense. Some people were abused by DLC as children or something, and the sight of those three dreaded letters makes them run around gibbering in terror.

Only for the usual crew of twisted freaks on GOG. Most sane people appreciate it. The game's sold half a million copies and has had a lot of people clamoring for more campaigns and factions; answering that with radio silence would be irresponsible. Given that the game was quite polished and playable in early access for 2 years, many of those players have finished most of the existing official content some time ago.

Well, we do know the contents. Each DLC is a new campaign with 4 missions, which is like each of the campaigns in the base game. Given the base game is reasonably priced, my guess is the mini-DLCs will be something like $5-$8, and the bigger expansion will be around $15.

Yes, that got where it was by having DLC, oops, I mean expansions. It wasn't released in its complete form. And even the "complete" version doesn't include Chronicles, but I guess it's acceptable for HOMM3 to do that since it's old or something(?). I get the impression that they won't, but there will be new songs for the Bleak East expansion.

The new two factions are very interesting and unusual in the spirit of the first four.

I'm wondering what combinations of essences the two new factions will have.

Сreation - destruction - chaos for plants and order - arcana - chaos for trolls?

Given how much they spammed us with promos in the two months leading up to early access/in development, I really don't think they are capable of waiting to announce something. They have to tell us now, and they have to build the hype. Because, HOMM3.

Well, if you cannot live without hype, that's a you problem

Excuse me? I agreed with you, they should have waited until nearer the release date. I don't think they are able to though.

That's because I zm right