I may be the only one here who thinks this, but why do all the HD games that are said to have good graphics (Mass Effect, Gears, Bioshock, etc.) have such odd looking visuals? When I say odd though, I mean shiny. Everything in these high end HD games looks like it was coated with clear nail polish or something. Everything has a reflection, and I think it makes the worlds look plastic. Does anyone feel this way?

Play MGS4.
The artistic direction is unprecedented and it doesn't rely on cheap specular effects but on very advanced geometry, lighting and physics.
DMC4 is another example of a gorgeous looking game without exagerating with the shine, though not on the same level of graphics as MGS4.

Usually UE3 engine powered games suffer from that exagerated specular mapping that make the characters look like plastic action figures.

Mass effect, Gears and Bioshock?

Coincidence that they are all 360 games?

No, just UE3 games.

Isn't Bioshock an UE2.5 game? They hadn't finished UE3 while it was in development.

I actually just couldn't think of ps3 games. I also dont like the way GTA4 looks, and I hate the way HEavenly Sword looks. everything looks so weird. Like "hyper-sharp" is that makes sense. I don't know.

yeah quite a few of them look shiny

they look to shiny...or just awkward (heavenly sword: hair)

....too much shine...it's just not good...they should use it differently

mgs4 just looks rlly rlly good.
also uncharted looks really good too.

It's probably the Unreal Engine.