I feel 100% confident that its not dead. The game in its playable state looked fine (although not amazing), visually what they showed didn't look that stunning but the gameplay was there in modest form. Theres almost no reason to believe its dead when fully convincing explanations have begin to the games absence and we have confirmed news of them implementing elements of their next gen engine into the game.
-2006- what was shown was a concept trailer, there was no game at the time.
-2009/2010- portions of the developement team was shifted to help finish FFXIII and I'm sure this happend with XIII2 to an extent.
-2011- Full production finally begins as stated by Nomura
-2012- Development is partially halted to help get FFXIV on its feet. Possibly to help on Lightnings return which only has a 16month development cycle according to its target release date, which implies they'll need some assistance to finish the game in time.
So really we're looking at a game which has probably only had 2 years of full development. A late 2013 release would be plausible but not if Squares wants to get Lightning Return out the way 1st. So we're left with a 2014 release date.