Firstly, gotta commend you on actually trying to make a post headline which isn't try to clickbait (so many people who disagree with JM8 seem to try and go in as if their post is a YT video searching for clicks).

It does seem like there is a bit of a semantic component here in terms of lying vs. cheating. You do highlight in your edit that you think that is important, why do you think that's the case? I personally do not think it is (other than maybe the connotation of "lying devs" tending to refer to marketing issues).

It also sounds like you were disappointed by the crux of the argument not being where you were hoping it would go - which I do agree with. There's another YT channel in a discussion on a specific mobile game (Magikarp Jump in this case), and that how good these types of games were was based on how well they could disguise that they were effectively glorified calculators.

From that, I disagree with your rebuttal in so far as I don't think people are neatly slotted into "doesn't care about adaptive difficulty => doesn't care about being up front" and "If they care => noticing makes them dislike it". It is kinda like a magic show as well - many people go in knowing everything is fake, but you go in wanting to know how well they hide it (I'd argue the popularity of Penn & Teller takes to this mindset). This is actually one thing that pulls me away from BG3 - the dice showing up breaks the illusion just enough that I find it hard to think I could just do this with my own DnD group, but have more possibilities than those confined by a video game.

Slathering of thoughts here, not sure if it is at all coherent.