MediaSense was originally designed to be an abstraction layer between the various Cisco UC applications and hardware (e.g. phones, gateways, etc) and the recording application, whether Cisco or 3rd party. It has a lukewarm reception from the recording vendors since they realize MediaSense also makes it easier for a customer to swap out the recording software without loosing all of the recording data.
Customer pushed Cisco to make MediaSense it's own solution and Cisco bent a bit. There are now basic widgets within Finesse for supervisors as well as a basic Search and Play UI on MediaSense; emphasis on basic.
The CR/QM/AQM product (really just different licenses of the same software) predate MediaSense but I believe are compatible with it if desired. Because they predate it they are capable of doing the basic recording as well. The advantage that QM/AQM have is additional functionality beyond basic audio capture. For example, scoring/grading calls for Quality Management and recording agent PC screens in tandem with the call for Advanced QM. Even at the CR level there are some tricks available with APIs that MediaSense can't do if you need to attach Enterprise Data to a call or have more complex searches, retention periods, etc.
Probably best to have your partner demo both and see which appears to be a better fit.
