The first game to really make me say "Ah, so this is what everyone's been talking about" was Oblivion. But the first game to make me say "Wow! Now this is what I'm talking about." was definitely Bioshock. I mean, what a way to start out a game... watching a plane sink into the ocean while surrounded by its firey remains (the fact that it was you were controlling the hero at that point was very cool. I think I left the controller down for about a minute before I realized that I was actually in control ). Heck, the whole scenerio before Jack first injects himself with the plasmid... they sure went out of their way to introduce us to Rapture, and it was definitely worth it.

On that note, I'm so looking forward to Bioshock 2.

Since then, it's been "Oh, that looks nice/cool/great/etc." Not to say that the games don't look great now, it's just that... like you said, it's been variations of things I've seen before. And ironically enough, my favorite looking game this gen is a Wii title... Muramasa: The Demon Blade is just drop dead gorgeous. It was the first time in a long time where I would just run back and fourth... just taking in the visuals. It's funny, my little sister walked in while I was playing and said "That's the most beautiful game I've ever seen." Couldn't agree more.

The first games in a console gen are the most likely to make you sit up and go WOW! Well, the first 1-2 yrs of a gen. The jump from the previous gen is always huge. After that the variation is less as the devs just look for ways to make the best of the hardware. Having said that I was amazed at what devs managed to get out of the PS2 towards the end of its gen, but the hardware jump makes a massive difference. I do think we're fast approaching a time when improving graphics will just give diminishing returns.

Yeah the consoles weak point is AA. Still, even with mods, poly count is still very limited without DX11, which makes such a huge difference, meaning you can say "I prefer the style of X to Y", such as Uncharted 2 I would say looks more detailed than Crysis. After seeing the uginie DX11 benchmark in progress, I can safely say that DX11 is going to be setting the graphics bar IF it is utilised well, and not like in Dirt 2 where it's for tiny things such as flags (although the fully 3d crowds are a big leap).

Its more than AA, its the lack of flexibility in that you're limited by the compromises and trade-offs the developers choose to make. Further to that, Crysis does extremely well against bullshots, unrepresentative and unscaled screen caps etc. If I want to cut down the aliasing I have to make a tradeoff with resolution and scaling whereas with Crysis and other games on PC I can play at my screens native resolution, which for LCD technology is significant.

Tessellation IS a big deal for me. I would prefer Mass Effect 2's look even more for example if the heads didn't look like they were carved out of stone. The 3D tessellated crowds are pretty cool though like you said.

If you are referring to TLG, I would have to agree.  The most amazing part of that game is the animation of Trico.  It's fantastic.

+ 1 gajillion

That is because most of them are made on the Xbox 360 first then ported to the PS3. It has been proven that Developing a game on the PS3 first, then porting it to the Xbox 360 is the better option.

+1 

Sources? And more than a sony only studio plz.

I just wanna say I agree with u about the main character. There's some kind of artistic thought behind the design choice but I hate it. I don't want a cartoon in this gorgeous game.