How close does the 70-200 come to the primes 100mm, 135mm, 200mm it look?

The Zeiss 135 IPO 2.0 is getting rave reviews but is manual focus. Does the 70-200 come close enough to the above?

It does pretty well except when compared to the 200 prime. The 200 f/2 is in a class by itself, could be the best lens Nikon has ever made.

In look? I didn't find anything special about the look from the VR2 when I rented it. It worked fine and is a really good all purpose short tele zoom but if I wanted a specific "look" I don't think this would be the first I'd look to pick up

At the moment my primes are Sigma Art 35mm, Nikon 50 1.8, Nikon 85mm 1.4 so the zoom seems like it might offer something different?

Yes, it would offer something different. If I were buying a 70-200 today, I'd get the f/4 version.

The difference it might offer is the ability to compress out at 200mm. IMO, it still won't look as nice as your 85/1.4 wide open for a portrait but that's just my opinion

The compression I like but the 24-70 is a useful lens I would use but the Nikon version just released doesn't do much better then the old one and in this category the Tamron seems a better choice.

I haven't seen many sample shots from the VR to judge OOF blur characteristics but the various MTF charts I've seen around the place indicate that Nikon have worked hard on its off centre performance. It appears to me to be the best out there (even better than the Canon) once you get out to the rule of thirds area and closer to the edges