I think it feels a lot closer to 7 than Wii, IMO. It felt really solid. I only played 3 tracks, and both were at 2 laps only (I think this was for demo purposes). Drifting felt good, but it felt like you could get mini-turbos faster than previous games. Obviously, coins return, but they felt a lot harder to get than MK7. Maybe because I didn't know the placement/tracks yet.
The tracks I played:
Mario Circuit - Pretty regular MK track. Introduced anti-gravity, but straightforward. Not too many shortcuts.
Toad Harbour - Similar to Mushroom Bridge from MKDD. Cool shortcuts/alternate paths with anti-gravity. Some cool alleyways and stuff.
Twisted Mansion - Awesome. Combines elements of Bowser's Castle stages and Luigi's Mansion stages. Two "level" choices off a boost from gliding, some cool forced and un-forced anti-gravity part, lots of drifting, stairways, dodging boos. Really opened up the options for utilizing shortcuts with anti-gravity.
Couple more things:
- Anyway, as far as controls go, it seemed tighter than Wii, so I'd say it's closer to 7.
- Even with the 12 characters it didn't feel as hectic as MKWii or Sonic Transformed (still hectic, but I wasn't getting hit with an item every 0.5 seconds)
- Mini-boosts are a lot faster to get. Like, significantly.
- Wheelies work only while boosting with bikes. At least I couldn't do it otherwise.
- No blue shell, bullet bill, or new characters (Rosie, Koopalings) in the demo so who knows how they'll play.
- Obviously you hold items in your hands now, but I didn't get a chance to try out dragging. I think it's fire-and-forget. They didn't have triple shells in the demo so I dunno how that will work.