Realistic videogame graphics dull the imagination of its consumers.
HERE IS MY UNPOPULAR RETORT
The general feel of your point is popular, but the unpopular thing to say is that realism has many shades within gaming. There's stylistic realism versus true realism, and even between those two, they show up in different spots within the same game. True realism seems to be a holy grail for facial animations and faces in many games that have non-realistic settings. A current example would be the fuckup of faces on ME:A, but a much, much older example that people loved was NBA Jam. That game tried to map realistic faces on completely stylized bodies in an arcade version of the NBA.
So I don't associate realism directly with lack of imagination. I play two 'astronaut' games, one has very stylized aesthetic and the other more realistic, but both are imaginative for the very setting and structure of the game genre itself. LA Noire went hyper realistic faces with a period piece look.
While sports sims turn towards true realism, as do historical military shooters, much of the realism in gaming is stylized in order to fit the fantastical nature of gaming's genres. Stylized realism is the norm, but I'd agree that mistakes in stylized realism tend to come from going too far towards true realism.