Do you remember Battlefield Friends? Do you remember the episode PC Elitist? I say Noob is right. Sometimes, a game can have too much graphics.
I am used to playing on lower graphic settings. I think that games like the original Warcraft 3 or Halo look fine even today. Don't get me wrong, I like better graphic too, it is just that we are far into diminishing returns now. But I know there are people willing to pay that huge performance cost and I am fine with that. Where I start to have issues is when a game has so many special effects that it is hard to see what is even going on. But usually those at least look pretty. Lets talk about few specific effects that not only cost you performance, but make the game actually look worse.
Filters
Is that spilled juice on your monitor? No, it is just a color filter that someone put in the game, so that everything looks desaturated and covered in urine. Sometimes there are other effects, like film grain, put on top of it. Usually the reasons are that it sets a mood or make the game feel “cinematic”. It makes me think that whoever put it there wanted to make a movie, but got stuck making a game. Games are interactive, you want to make the player feel like they are a part of the game’s world. Unless the main character is an old camera, you are not going to achieve immersion with these effects.
Depth of field
Lets blur the whole screen except a small patch in the middle. I think the idea was either that it is more realistic (because we focus our eyes) or more “cinematic” (because camera has to focus too). If it is about realism, then it is pointless. Our eyes are already able to sharply see only a small area. The only effect of depth of field is that it forces you to always look into the center of the screen. It basically treats the screen of a first person game as your eye, instead of treating it as your head. It makes even less sense in other perspectives, just let us look at whatever is on the screen. And if it is the second reason, then go make a movie instead.
Motion blur
Similar to depth of field in appearance, but different in behavior. Supposedly it can compensate for lower framerate and it might have some uses, like in racing games, but in most games it just makes everything blurry whenever you move the camera. If you pay for the best graphics possible, you probably don’t want all that detail to be removed by motion blur.
There are more effects I could complain about, like bloom or chromatic aberration, but these are fine when done right. The ones I mentioned always look bad and should not be used all the time. They should be used only in special circumstances, when it serves the story or gameplay, like showing off the player is affected by something or that the environment is polluted. Sure, we can turn them off, but if everyone always does that, then what is the point?