What?! That's cheating...! :P

I don't really care if a game has high graphics or low graphics but I like graphical consistency throughout the game. Why? Well, it makes me thinks the devs are being lazy when bits of the game look like ass compared to the rest of the game. 

They are important for me but the art style rather than poligon count.

it depends on the game really. If you are playing a big RPG where the visuals and scenery play a big role, then yes. if i am playing a side scroller platformer, don't really care that much. it also depends on the art style the developer is going for.

I hope you don't mind me asking when a game was inconsistent with graphics? I'm not sure if I have encountered that before...

They need to be good enough to not hamper the art style the creator is going for. It's very case by case.

Considering that Revelations 2 may end up been my GOTY...... they mean very little to me.

Art style is more important than great graphics, so I don´t know where that falls :). Gameplay is always center stage, but some games just needs great art style aswell to actually be fun (lika many rpgs, games like Ori and such).

I could have said what you said word for word.

I do expect there to be some progress though. The standard gets raised over time. I don't like it if a current game would look like a PS1 game, unless it deliberately goes for a certain style (and does it well). If I would play an actual PS1 game however, then I won't mind obviously because I'm very good at putting these things into context. Even today I can be more impressed by the graphics of (both artistic as well as technically) a 20 year old game than a 1 year old game if it looked better relative to it's time. That's why it's harder for new games to impress me, we've reached a point where differences become tiny and everything basically looks 'good enough'. The artistic direction is also more important to me than the bare technicality. Yoshi's Island on SNES or Bioshock look better to me than something generic and 'boring' as Titanfall or Skyrim.

In the end though, if gameplay or anything is bad, no amount of pixels can make up for it, even if it looked as good as reality itself. Then, graphics falls into last place as far as importance goes. An old game with excellent gameplay and 'terrible' graphics is better than a new game with great graphics and bad gameplay, which today is sadly the case more often than not.

Me, I don't care. But the game has to be at the current standards of today. Unless your goal is to make a older look. I don't want to see Madden 2015 have box people. I prefer the game to run smoothly over pretty. What does the pretty matter. When said game will be outdated in a few years anyway. GTA IV is a POS, 'cause of this. GTA V is amazing. Not because of its graphics. Because the game engine doesn't chug to death on any setting. It runs smoothly on any configuration, you setup.