Graphics seem to be playing a big part if a game is good or not nowadays. I like the good graphics but they dont have to be like amazing!

how much do you care about them

I definetely want graphics to be great.....for me it gives a whole new level of feel, excitement & atmosphere to games.

But in some games graphics aren't important....like SSBB (who cares when its just fun), GTA : SA n so on

but in other games like MGS4 which is a cinematic masterpiece of the highest level the graphics take the cutscenes to a whole new level!

It's not that big of a deal for me, but it pains me to see companies who don't even try to make their games look decent.
(>'.')>

The help a lot. When a game has crappy graphics, it generally annoys me and does damage the experience. If it has great graphics, it does really draw me into the game, and certainly makes me feel far more immersed

Depends on the genre...

FPS - very important
Racing - same
JRPG - SNES graphics are pretty much all you need.

They aren't 100% important but they are needed.

This, Physics are as important to me as well, Like the things going on in the background of MGS4, or the amount of enemies in Resistance 2

i agree they have to be good/great but not lifelike

I don't care about graphics personally, Art Style is more important. Also, I hold Pong in more regard than Crysis.

Graphics have fallen significantly in importance for me in the past few years when it comes to my enjoyment of a game. So long as the framerate is smooth, I don't mind subpar graphics. To demonstrate the point, I played Call of Duty 4 on my four year old PC (Athlon 3000+, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1 GB RAM) at 640x480 resolution and almost all the graphical settings turned down low, and I still enjoyed it so much that I had to uninstall the game for fear of it sucking up my free time.