Some thoughts about this:
The obvious part: Interceptor started making this a Top Down shooter with Duke Nukem on it because of some law inconsistencies? / confussion? / another unknown reason, they named it. Then Gearbox came and told them to take out every copyrighted piece owned by them. Also Interceptor bought 3DRealms, probably as a legal movement. (Which is the best thing that could have happened) They replaced Duke Nukem with Bombshell as the main character, then renamed the game.
Suming it up, imo Interceptor would not have made a top down shooter in the first place if they hadn't put their hopes on a new Duke game. But with no Duke at all you still have a top down RPG game and an empty shell to fill (no pun intended)
So this is kind of a mess, Interceptor didn't make the correct moves before. I'm for sure they would liked to work on a FPS more than a Top down shooter if they had been able to decide and not putting their hopes on an already copyrighted IP.
At this point, anyway, I do believe using Bombshell is the best movement they could do for the new game whilst putting a new counter in the page the worst; you know, the hype, no gameplay at all, the rushed trailer, etc..
About Bombshell character design, I don't like that gigantic and not stylized robotic arm but what cracked me the most is the lack of feelings, come on even one could see the angry on Duke's face, hope it is trailer's rush job fault and not an actual feature... think about it is she both Bombshell and the scraped out Duke's gay (lesbian) robot mate?
Nevertheless, as Gambini said this is the best that could have happened to the franchise, looking at the state of things.
On the other hand as Micky C pointed out, Interceptor should redefine his marketing strategy, unless they want the Duke Nukem curse boulder to keep rolling...
Again, these are only opinions...
Oh and by the way the president was already a woman before Duke was removed, isn't it obvious?
Mike Norvak