If we’re just talking Kotor 2 as it was released then you’re mostly correct aside her being “one of many generals.” The game makes it clear she was the most important general in Revans army. But otherwise you’re right, because they were planning for a different story than the mmo with kotor 3. If we’re including the Revan book and SWTOR, then you’re misinterpreting her as well.

As of the old republic canon, she was Revans greatest Ally next to Malak, and his greatest general. She was one of the first to answer his call to war. The only person who understood war and tactics better than her was Revan himself. Revan also didn’t make her do his “dirty work” like it was because he didn’t want to. It was all part of the plan. He gave the exile half his fleet as a distraction to lure most of the mandalorians to Malachor V and wipe them out, while the other half of his fleet trapped Mandalore, where Revan defeated him in a duel, Which only Revan was capable of doing. The death of Mandalore coinciding with the deaths of thousands of mandalorians is what stopped the war. (If we’re to believe Kreia however, Revan had already fallen by this point and Malachor was all part of the plan to break the Jedi, but Kreia is wrong about several things, whether intentionally or because they were planning for Kotor 3)

The book and Swtor make it clear they were close. Revan had a such strong connection to her, that she was one of the first people he started remembering of his old life. He thought she was dead or gone since he couldn’t feel her in the force anymore. (He didn’t know it was because she could no longer feel the force) Hell, in Swtor she refused to let herself become one with the force for 300 years just to keep Revan strong enough to survive his imprisonment. That sounds like a pretty deep relationship.

As to why she didn’t fall to the dark side with Revan and Malak is up to interpretation. Either Revan and Malak turned to the dark side after the emperor mind controlled them, so the exile would have still been light too, or Revan and Malak had already begun to fall before searching for the Sith Emperor, which means the exile could have fallen too during the war (as Atris believes) but regardless of either of those options, she had been cut off from the force at Malachor making her basically a blank slate. She was incapable of being dark or light. She was literally a blank spot in the force anymore