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You're free to believe what you want (that the company lied for no reasonable reason, or whatever...), but the developers themselves state that Lords of Shadow was a Castlevania all along.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175699
"So why was it originally announced just as Lords of Shadow, without the Castlevania name? According to Cox, for last year's Leipzig Games Convention where it was first shown, Konami management wanted to demonstrate that great game development was being conducted in Europe yet it didn't want to upstage its other big Castlevania game being shown at the time (Judgment). So the Lords of Shadow trailer was shown without the Castlevania moniker -- much to his frustration and disappointment. But Cox was surprised more people didn't recognize it as a Castlevania game anyway, especially since the character's suit was designed to look similar to Simon Belmont's. The Lords of Shadow logo that was used in the trailer, sans Castlevania? It was apparently created within days of the show."
I don't see any reason to doubt his words. Especially since from day one, when the first footage of the game was shown to the press at Leipzig's 2008 Game Convention, the main character was already wielding a whip. ^_-
