After going through a few of these articles, this is my very general takeaway summary:

"The new MacBook Pro's battery life is not as good as the previous generation but is still decent for its class. The decrease in battery life, compared with the older model, is mostly due to a brighter screen, better cpu/gpu, and slightly smaller battery. Ultimately, it is up to the user and the user's use case to gauge the actual battery life and tradeoffs of upgrading to the new MBP."