"Edge of Tomorrow" Stuck in Yesterday

www.edgeoftomorrowmovie.com
In Edge of Tomorrow, a video game character's ability to reset or "respawn" is a very apparent metaphor (and intentional, according to this Hollywood Reporter interview with director Doug Liman). It occurred to me that the movie's central question could be "What if you had to keep playing a video game until you won?", which at first sounds intriguing. But on second thought, wouldn't it be more poignant and memorable a movie if it made me think about things like reincarnation, resurrection, or succeeding in life? The metaphor inside a metaphor is a bit convoluted. More interesting to me is the premise of a villain that can respawn and learn from its mistakes, sort of like the robots in The Incredibles or maybe the artificial intelligence of the xenomorph in the upcoming game Alien: Isolation.
It was Incredibles director Brad Bird who first piqued my interest in this movie when he tweeted the following:

Sure, he may be biased, being a sci-fi aficionado and having directed EoT star Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol. Then again, he is also the writer/director of some of my favorite movies, including those mentioned, The Iron Giant, and Ratatouille. That, and I was intrigued by his calling EoT "original." He made a similar pitch for Gravity, another movie that won me over and that inspired the amateur film study on this blog.
While EoT is not a sequel or a reboot, it is an adaptation of a Japanese book called All You Need Is Kill, and therefore not original in the sense of a "new idea." Bird suffered a lot of Twitter backlash on this point and so clarified two days later that he knew it was a book adaptation and simply meant "original" as "first film."
Now having seen it, I have to call "foul" on interpreting originality so loosely. As a fan of retellings, I have no complaints about recycling old ideas; however, I personally felt a little betrayed by his and critics' praise for the film as something unexpected and fresh. I did enjoy it, but I kept waiting for the originality I'd paid for, wishing I could reset my expectations. Like Tom Cruise's character in the movie, it's only on the edge of tomorrow because it's still stuck in yesterday.
To demonstrate, the following are plot points or other elements from the movie that draw from existing films (spoilers follow):

...Except, well, she isn't the protagonist, which to me is kind of the point. It's not a question of whether she's a good character (flawed, interesting, etc.); she certainly is. It's a question of whether her role in the story is all that different from what we've already seen before. And I say no, it's not. Even her awesome propeller sword is just a live-action realization of any number of video game and anime weapons.
Again, all this is just a rebuttal of that claim to originality, which sent me in expecting something different from what I got. What I got was familiar, but sometimes familiar is fun and comforting. For example, the Aliens appeal is amplified by the presence of Bill Paxton, whose character is a surprising high point. Also, what's a sci-fi action flick without a convoluted time travel twist that requires us to analyze and argue its internal logic?
So on that note, here are my unanswered questions. If you have an explanation for one or more of these, please leave it in the comments!Why is Cage sent to the front lines so unceremoniously? Did I miss a line of dialogue explaining why General Brigham (gotta love Brendan Gleeson) felt justified in sacrificing a key war spokesman?Why are the aliens called Mimics? One soldier even wears a shirt printed with the words "Mimic This." Why? I noticed no shapeshifting, mimicry, or camouflage abilities.Why was everyone alive at the end? I get that Cage absorbed the Omega's blood and reacquired the looping ability, but wouldn't that just reset the day again, restoring both Cage's team and the Omega?