The examiner could be looking for B as the correct answer; however we usually add the word 'of' to read 'more of a success than . .'
Another way of saying this would be '. . was more successful than . .'
D is grammatically correct but is ambiguous as it could mean that the anticipated outcome is what actually happened, or imply that a better outcome would have been preferred, but that there had been doubt about this happening. Only a good knowledge of the background to the statement could differentiate between these two possibilities.
I suspect that this is the 'correct answer' that the examiner is looking for.