Fair enough. In general I am suspicious of ideas. There are exceptions but in general I don't follow stuff because of the concept, hook, or idea. I care for the creative teams as much if not more so than the idea.
In principle, "Spider's Shadow" as an idea doesn't interest me for the reasons you say, this is retreading ground. But the fact that it's Zdarsky doing this makes me curious because I like his work and I tend to be interested in the stuff he does.
Spider-Man: Life Story for instance is a story with a great idea but I cared more because Zdarsky was doing it because I knew it was going to be in good hands. If that same idea was done by say Dan Slott, or even Mark Waid, I would have passed or waited for the reviews because in general I don't like their ideas and approaches in general.
In the case of the X-Men, I am here for Hickman because I know he has big ideas and X-Men has the biggest ideas in any single Marvel basket.
Like others have said...it all comes down to "what makes this what if spidey kept the symbiote different?"
if I were to nitpick one thing is maybe the portrayal of Kingsleys. he was suppose be the more cunning sane Goblin than Norman, maybe because going after Spidey's love ones and making it personal was Norman's thing. He discovered Peter secret the same way Norman did except Rodrick pull the trigger and destroyed the house.
I wonder if had Hobgoblin not be killed by Peter, Norman would have killed him, i mean he killed Gwen but Peter never killed him where as here Peter has gone over to the darkside with the death of Aunt May because of Hobgoblin so in a way he one up'd Norman by making Peter go Punisher.
Well, the first issue wasn't at all a deception, but I wasn't surprised, honestly. I mean, what happened in the end was evident after we saw the preview. Hobgoblin attacks Spider-Man's house, Aunt May dies? That becomes HobGoblin's last mistake. What will happen how?
Well, surely Jameson will love finally having proof of "Spider-Man" becoming a menace, but this will likely be his doom. I mean, I can see "Spider-Venom" storming Jameson's office, and recriminating him for all the people that die because of his role in the creation of the Spider-Slayers, the Scorpion and the Human Fly. So you can guess what will happen to him.
Something that called my attention in this issue, however, was the short moment when Mary Jane touched the symbiote and it jumped out of her hands. I can't stop thinking THIS was a hint for something involving MJ in this arc. For some reason, I can't stop thinking "Bride of Frankenstein" incomming, but I would really won't like to see another version of Mary Jane becoming bonded to Carnage. A different symbiote?, maybe. But NOT Carnage, please.
"I have the power . . . time I started using it." Kind of reminds me of when he was about to kill Shocker in the 90s animated version of The Alien Costume Saga. And yeah, would be fairly satisfying for me, too, if Venom-Spidey called out Jonah for his vendetta against him leading to the creation of supervillains that harmed and killed innocent people.
The spider is always on the hunt.