You could scale the faces of your original object in Edit mode to make it square again. Also, the Array modifier with Object Offset should work, you just need to precisely find the right settings.
Another way would be to give the Simple Deform to a simple plane, go into the Object panel > Instancing and click on Faces, then parent your cube to your plane, it will create one instance per face and won't be deformed, hide the original:
