Well PVP is not much really, if Co-Op will work, this is what i really will appreciante in the game.
I really liked this decision, at least now i have hope in playing the game, i'd love to see the campaign and play it in cooperative.
And i don't think that they will be punishing anyone, they will just be releasing the game sooner without a feature that is not necessary for playing the game... and later will probably add this feature.
But what i believe they did wrong again is announce stuff before it is ready, if they didn't announced that the game had pvp, noone would be sad with this notice, people would actually be happy that there will be a PATH for that new feature.
They just are saying too much, and much sooner, they should wait for the right time, before doing so.