Sid Meier's Civilization 7 developer breaks down the new leader mechanics, "it's one of the biggest changes we've made to the game and one of the scariest"
Yeah, I'm not mad that they chomped Humankind's flavor. I see it as an admission that the game had good ideas (if less-than-stellar execution). I've just seem rando comments trying to tamp down on claims that there are similarities like their stock portfolio is riding on it.
I'm sure it's management's fault but they should be shouting out fellow devs in their breakdowns: "oh, we saw Humankind and thought it's mechanic was fascinating. But we wanted to adapt it closer to our style and refine some pain points we noticed in our execution."