When it comes to "realistic" games, I think Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition and the new Thief both look significantly better than Second Son and Ryse. Go over the past few pages and the shots from Tomb Raider: DE and Thief almost look like paintings at times. They're overflowing with atmosphere and an extraordinary attention to detail.
Ryse, meanwhile, has the uncanny valley effect where the skin and musculature might look realistic but the eyes look robotic and soulless. Second Son has wonderful character models but looks like yet another open-world city game -- boxy buildings, open streets and rooftops -- with flat foliage on the outskirts and nothing particularly noteworthy next to the likes of, say, Sleeping Dogs PC, which looks every bit as good in the rain. I do appreciate the Seattle setting, as I said before, and the lighting effects on neon signage and superpowers are nice, but I suspect the novelty will wear off. The game world doesn't look like the next step in immersion when titles like GTAV seem to be more ambitious in scope, scale and density of detail, even if their past-gen trappings had them struggle more with IQ and framerate.
I fully believe in the PS4 and plan to get one, but I think it kind of does the system a disservice to put forth Second Son as proof of its power. I suspect Naughty Dog or Santa Monica will be the ones to really show what the system can do -- aside from their technical proficiency, both studios also have a knack for offering up lush landscapes with awe-inspiring architecture and breathtaking scale. E3 will be interesting.