I have to say, graphics have always been a major part of how games are marketed. Especially in the old days, where distribution was much more difficult, and more likely to cost money. Now at least, Beta invitations and well-crafted demos can be used as well, prior to reliable, high speed internet (not AOL) demos were an anomaly.
In the old days, the primary method of marketing was screenshots, showing how gorgeous the worlds were. These were placed in ads in various tech and gaming magazines, and later on the WWW.
The reason there are no real innovative games coming out of the major studios is because the big money always follows the safe bet. Call of Duty 6 is a safe bet; all CoD titles have done well, and have established a large fanbase that by itself can cause the developers and publishers to turn a profit. Dwarf Fortress isn't, and if developed by a major developer would be a marketing nightmare, with it's steep learning curve and absence of graphics.
That said, This game by all appearances offers similar style and gameplay to Wizardry 7, which is one of the best old-school cRPGs made, among other similar games. The graphics, while nicely done, are not spectacular 3D models or even '03ish models but drawn 2D, just at a higher detail than the older games. Just because it appears (not confirmed) to use a single character for the PC (ala Ultima Alkalabeth and 1, the Summoning and Veil of Darkness, and probably more older titles that I'm forgetting) and needs more than a 80486 (who even has one these days? I have a dual core laptop for my DOS games, thank you DOSBox) doesn't make it a modern graphics fest.
The mass market wants the same old, graphics and gore-fest that comes out 300 times a year. Thus, that is what the major developers make and the major publishers sell. The people who play RPGs are a niche, western styled rpgs a niche within a niche, and turn based games an even smaller niche. This is why most of my latest buys have been independently developed and sold. It's also why I'm going to college in the spring to learn to program and design games; I fully intend to write my own "Wizardry" style game.