Generally speaking, most games don't receive such massive patches Day 1 where a heavy portion of content is waiting to be downloaded. Once again, if we run under the assumption that the game is small because they need you to download a large ass patch to complete the game, does that not sound weird?
Let's say, for example, that the food chain thing is added with this patch. That's a pretty huge dynamic to add in, because now you'll have to scan them and hope they won't get into a tussle, see the cool interactions of what's larger on the chain, and maybe even use the in-fighting to escape a battle. For me, that'd be so damn cool to see, but if my internet was capped or I wasn't by a source, I'm shit out of luck.
(I don't even know if that was actually promised or not)
A few of those instances aren't too bad, all things considered. But a mega patch adding in tons of content and saying "now you have the full game" is jarring.
I love patches. I look forward to seeing them, and seeing all the new content. But is it really straight up new content if they were planning on adding that on Day 1 and using the download as a way to give people that portion of the game?