groze: I don't want to spoil the game at all, but I can say at least this: Hob is not a robot. There's an event very early in the game (quite an emotional one, at that) that clearly shows us he is organic. I don't know about artificial being, in the broader sense of the term, since when the game starts he already exists "as is" (minus one... "detail"), and I haven't come across anything that sheds light on his past, yet. I guess it basically boils down to a matter of perception? To me, he always "felt" male, even in terms of design. Either way, I'm the one who could be wrong, I'm just assuming Hob's gender based on how he looks, to me, his name and how he behaves in terms of gameplay. And, mind you, I was wrong before, Nintendo did pull the same trick on me with the original Metroid. :P I'm not sure Runic will even disclose Hob's past, but I believe they should make his/her gender clear, at least... or don't, actually, as long as you're having fun with the game, I guess Hob can be whatever gender the player wants them to be, we don't even know if Hob's species has genders. To me, though, he's male, even if this assumption turns out to bite me in the ass. :D
As for Larian, well... I just don't like them. I don't like the games they make, I don't like their brand of humour, I think that even their best games are quite overrated and I don't really believe they deserve all the attention and praise they've been getting for the Original Sin games. You're right to say these are not even the same genre of games, and my comment was unfortunate and misplaced, based on personal feelings that have nothing to do with action-adventures, Hob or Runic games. I just get a bit flustered because this is a really good game (within its genre, of course), and it doesn't seem to be getting any attention on its release day, whereas Larian could release a turd and, as long as it was a turn-based CRPG turd full of Monty Python and Hitchhiker's Guide references, "gamers" would still be praising it and lauding Larian as the lords and saviours of the video game industry.
I don't know, something about the character's face and clothing seemed feminine to me, but I have only seen the promo art and screenshots. As far as I can tell the devs don't mention that the character is male, so GOG seems to have randomly made that up for the description text, unless they know more. ( If I remember correctly, they also thought the main character of the Ys series is female, and his sidekick is a dog... ) As far as I know the gender of the player character of Undertale is never specified either, so it might be the same here, and entirely intentional.
I haven't actually played any of the Original Sin games, but I suspect Western RPGs are simply a more popular genre on PC, and they're more appealing for GOG's crowd of traditional PC gamers. A game like Hob will probably do much better on consoles and handhelds, such as the Switch. Or, for that matter, on a platform like Steam, with a lower average user age.