The good news is that as graphics improve, games with that huge level of complexity will gradually look better and better. The AAA titles like Call of Duty and Uncharted will always be at the forefront of graphical and physics technology, possibly to the detriment of gameplay (the public has their preferences, and the best selling games will almost always be the ones that have the most appeal to the gaming community at large), but indie games have much more access to advanced graphical and physics capabilities. The
sequel to Slender: The Eight Pages looks utterly brilliant and has graphics that could compete with big budget titles from a few years ago, but it's an indie title with exactly one homegrown game concept to its name beforehand. Haunt: The Real Slender Game is a
free title that expands on the original Slender concept of minimalist horror by including a deeper storyline and has graphics that would have gotten rave reviews from major publications in 2010.
And indie games have much greater freedom for creativity, because they're not spending $100 million on development and having to sell 50 million copies to be considered a success by their corporate publisher. They can't use expensive development kits, but they don't
have to because technology is ever improving. Dwarf Fortress is brilliant and all, but it's in desperate need of at least an improved UI and controls. I don't find it unbelievable that by the end of this decade, a game with the complexity of Dwarf Fortress will be in the full 3D while remaining free to play and made by a handful of amateurs.