This been called multiple times, including people claiming they ripped textures from M&B and I don't know what to tell you. Just so we're clear, there were other issues - the game is in Unity and they bought items from the store that were stolen from other games/mod projects that got them into trouble, but afaik this was already resolved. The development was bumpy and it was funny with how similar it felt to what we know about Bannerlord in that aspect, considering they decided to scrap what they had and re-write most of the game.
I can't explain to anyone how different it is from Warband right now, mechanically. As for the feeling of the game, yes, there's a lot in it that feels M&B-ish, because that was the goal, to put player in boots of single soldier/commander embedded in the world-wide (well, island-wide) conflict, that has sides, factions and other commanders. You can talk to people in bars, recruit companions (though they went for more RPG-ish approach of building relationship with them and the writing is hilariously awful, with some visual novel sprinkles on top with buying them gifts in dedicated gift shop) own settlements (though interestingly enough they decided to leave production sites like farms, mines etc. as neutral points), complete generic fetch quests, all the stuff that is in the M&B, but even though it's hard to make it entirely different and it would be silly to do so just for sake of it, it isn't all the same as in the M&B.
And the battles themselves are nothing like it, the AI soldiers aren't permanently aware of each other, so you can successfully flank enemies, but just the same you can be flanked, you need to scout out the battlefield and spot the dangers and, obviously, the engagements are generally smaller in scale. The army has its own interesting quirk, you recruit soldiers and organize them in squads, but you have total control over their equipment - that doesn't come free. Recruiting someone already geared up can be five-six times more expensive than recruiting a 'naked' soldier. Level ups just increase their skills without any change in gear, so early on most of the loot is quickly repurposed rather than sold.
Last time I played game made a circle and suffered from completely overpowered grenade spam from one of the major bandit factions, that was absolutely ridiculous in one of the first versions. Don't really know if I could recommend it, but I can say it does effectively scratch the M&B itch, while remaining fresh in most of its aspect.