So we've already seen it refined since the preview earlier this year. Just like other neural rendering/AI techniques it will continue to get better over time.

DLSS 1.0/2.0, Frame Generation, etc all got similar criticism.

One thing I look forward to is developers moving from achieving better superficial imagery in realistic games, and starting to differentiate in physics engines, world realism, etc which also scale with performance, but have been treated as secondary elements because visuals sell games more easily.

Reinvesting resources (both developer and compute) into these avenues can give us new experiences that the visual race really didn't. 

I have been hearing we hit photo real since the late 90s and every time it ages.

I mean most pre-rendered CGI isn't photo-real, so I don't think we're on the brink of getting there in online implementations (like games.) But we probably hit an asymptote in 2018 (most games don't look *that* much more realistic than RDR2, as an example) and DLSS5/neural rendering + real-time Ray Tracing promise to make achieving that sort of realism easier with fewer resources and more consistency for no-name NPCs, etc.

That means developers developing realistic style titles will need to differentiate themselves beyond the surface level visuals.

You can just look for yourself and see how games compare to photos. It used to be easy to tell what was off, but now it's getting increasingly difficult to pinpoint the remaining issues. That way, it's been easy to tell where we are along the years, despite some people claiming photorealism for a long time already.

The one I remember most sparking the most discussion. We have finally reached photo realism was Crysis. People were pulling photo's of a real location and comparing it to the in game version. Everything thought they would not ell them apart. Dreamcast with I think was MSR? Used photos as textures from real locations and at the time it was thought of it doesn't look more real than this. Similar thing with early screens of buildings from PGR3. 

If I am going to be honest. None of it impresses me anymore but Hi Fi Rush does. Games that use modern power for more expressive art style I do find impressive. There is some exceptions like Space Marine 2 because of how much is on screen at once. The facial animations in Onimusha are insane. Ordinary Cars. Buildings. Sky. Meh. Had that "IT LOOKS SO REAL!" for almost 30 years. More impressed when using that power for an expressive world. 

To be fair, Crysis does still look good enough to warrant such comparison at its best - but only at its best, and even then the differences are there. With mods, I remember seeing stuff that really does look photorealistic at times, or at least as good as it's now. But with DLSS 5, we're talking about a lot of games getting fairly close to photorealism much more consistently than Crysis ever did. The results still vary by game and even within games, but we're getting quite close now. With games designed to properly utilize DLSS 5, we might see even greater results in the coming years (or we might not, but we'll just have to wait and see).

I'm assuming MSR means Metropolis Street Racer, which I wasn't familiar with before. I imagine it has looked quite good at low resolutions and perhaps in print in particular, but I think the differences between it and reality are still pretty obvious. Driving games in general are a genre that has looked very good along the years though, and I can see why people would compare them to real life visuals.

I agree with you about art style and visual design. I think the game that has impressed me the most visually is Ghost of Yotei, and that's not because of its realistic graphics - no, I think the game is actually quite stylized for a fairly realistic-looking game. The impressive part is how the game is full of very picturesque moments. It feels like I'm constantly looking at scenes that look like they could be paintings or photos (as in photography, not as in photorealism). Of course the same goes for less realistic games as well, Ghost of Yotei just happens to be something I'm familiar with and impressed by myself. I can still appreciate realistic graphics too, even if the aim is for maximum realism rather than a a stylized version of realistic graphics.

So far practically the only thing I've seen DLSS5 do is take away any artistic intent found in the original games it's applied on and replace it with a homogenized mess that lacks any actual character or art direction. The one place it actually seems to do fine is when a game is already trying to aim for photorealism like in modern sports games, but any time it's put over a game that's not doing that it looks bad or even disturbing. The more stylistic the visual style is the worse DLSS5 looks. It basically just adds a bunch of unnecesary detail to everything, and makes games and characters look overly busy in terms of design and uncanny in general.

I don’t call something hit-or-miss brilliant, but ok.