Really? Now I happen to be a pretty avid sims fan (owned S2 with I think every expansion) play S3 (with 7expansion packs) daily, have played Sims Freeplay but didn't care for it, and one day may be able to afford S4, but ain't going to hold my breath waiting.
Any way, my point is the Virtual Villager games do bear a mild resemblance in that you can interact with the "people" build houses etc, but they are no where near as detailed nor time consuming. To me that's one of their major draws.
Having said that, I utterly fail to see how you can look at those images and then say it looks like The Sims. -just saying

Actually, not owning anything with a 3D display, I'm far more interested to know what platform(s) it will be released on and what I will have to try and get to enjoy it.