In my opinion, Video Games are a unique medium where they don't always have to have a face that looks 100% 'real'. Just look to games like Final Fantasy, Dead or Alive or World of Warcraft and you'll see that its even preferred that they have a different style over 'reality', even in their CGI cutscenes.
However, when speaking of the in game graphics, that is the graphics of the gameplay when controlling the characters, I feel the real problem game developers are having is trying to capture the motion of characters. For years now, graphics have been making leaps and bounds each generation. And we're coming closer and closer to being able to mimic thousands of facial expressions and real time events without even needing CGI cutscenes.
However, more and more, the major problem has been the way these characters move. The characters still move with set patterns and even with those set patterns, the 'uncanny valley' if you will, or as I call it, the 'programmers limitations' shine through. We're still seeing the same arm motions, the same head bobbing and the same running animations as we saw over 15 years ago. Did some group of programmers, possibly at Naughty Dog and Rockstar, come out and make ALL the motion animations for 90% of the games out there? Because they seem to be showing up across the board, and unless you're working on an obscure Wii title, a PC exclusive or a 2D game, they're mostly all the same. From the jerking gun twist in Mass Effect to the sliding run in Halo, this is what I truly call the 'Uncanny Valley'. And I think game developers should stop worrying so much about how games look and focus more on how characters move and interact.
Six upcoming games you should look into:
