I've heard a lot of people say that, and as a THING aficionado I have to say that no, it's not even nearly a shot for shot remake. There's no scene in an ice cave; there are no dialogue scenes inside the helicopters; there's no scene where someone is yanked under the facility, no scene where someone looks at a shower stall splattered with gore. Etc.
It does, however, include extremely similar aspects to the original, which is what I think people are responding to. The layout and set dressing of the facility looks nearly identical to the American facility in the original -- which, to be fair, production-wise the Norwegian facility was the American facility burned down. A guy running around with a flamethrower is going to trigger thoughts of the original -- but, to be fair, the Norwegian facility was discovered as a burned-out wreck in the original.
I mean, I think one of the whole underlying ideas in the original was they go to the Norwegian camp and they (and we) think, "What the fuck happened here?" And then as things unfold at the American camp we find out exactly what the fuck happened there because almost the same exact thing happens to the Americans, down to them realizing they've gotta burn the whole mother down to try and keep it from escaping. So it only makes sense that seeing the Norwegian part of the story, it will be similar to the Americans, because the whole point was that both camps wound up responding to the Thing in essentially the same way.
So, I dunno. It seems like an unnecessary film and the CG transformations will probably be slicker but less interesting than the puppets, but I'm gonna give it a chance.
Unless it gets like 20% on Rotten Tomatoes; then it's a rental.