They can write that in their EULA as much as they like, they still have to follow the laws of the country the game was sold in.
Yeah, this is apparently a mess. They probably ran out of money and didn't get any more investor funding, and then just decided to ship in alpha to save their asses. Which would have been a completely cool thing to do if the game clearly stated that it was in alpha, and you were basically getting in early for pre-purchasing. You know, beta testing. They do that these days, people would probably not have been that outraged if they had to pre-purchase to get in.