I don't think that Vice City at all 'copied' Scarface. The only serious similarity that I noticed was the ending scene.

Vice City was a compilation of a lot of mafia, gangster, conquest, and other neat classic ideas of a 70s city adventure. When people say that don't want Scarface to imitate Vice City, I think they just want another unique type of game, rather than another GTA, which we're going to get very soon anyway.