They weren't, no. But I can't begin to answer why they would play a less advanced build of the game than GameStar, more than a month after GameStar had their hands on it, and just a few days before the Gold was announced.
Yeah, that makes no sense. Plus, CDPR itself has not shied away from warning us that hairworks will murder performance. The Gamestar comment seems to be the outlier and the one I am most wary of.