Don't know why it's taken me so long to notice but *at first glance* those snapshots look like a typical Google web app. The same monochromatic colouring, the same bare straight lines, the same flat blocks of colour.
Are Microsoft really that frightened of Google they'll copy an interface design I find cryptic, confusing and often pointlessly inefficient? While keeping all the worst offenders in their own toolkit like the ribbon - a game of 'Where's Wally' played with app functions!
Are they all in a race to see who can simplify their UI the most, regardless of what that does to usability?
...and in case anyone wondered, I find Googles version slightly less fugly than Metro. So very fugly rather than extremely fugly...