I think seeing it in motion is gonna help a lot to understand what they're going for. I expect it to be really fast and fluid. I don't think it has a Gears of War meathead muscleman-fantasy vibe at all.
That's what I've been thinking too, while the game does have similarities with Gears of War (PG even admitted the inspiration from it), as a whole the game looks quite different.
Vanquish is supposed to be ultra fast paced (some previews claimed its the fastest TPS ever), a very high concentration on Melee combat, the ability to use Augmented Reaction Mode "ARM" (Which is the equivalent of Witch time), exploding enemies (Yes, I miss exploding enemies!!), etc...
While I do not know what they mean, but they said Vanquish is "trying to inject the pace of an action game into a shooter" which makes me think its not going to feel like the rest of the TPS's out there including Gears of War.
Still, a Gameplay video is needed to judge, I guess we have to wait until E3.