I don't understand that statement, because Call of Duty's game-play doesn't call for any more graphical fidelity, or even new methods - the technology they had in 1996 was good enough for what they want to accomplish. I think the term is to reassure players that they're not abandoning game-play for some other game aspect, and less so about being true - developers have previously been accused of focusing on graphics, and not game-play.
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That's kind of ironic actually as they actually didn't show gameplay in the reveal. What they showed was described as "in-engine." And I'm not denying that it looks awesome. But they didn't show gameplay, so they can't be accurately judged even by their own self-proclaimed standards right now. And I won't argue your point about graphics over gameplay--I really looked forward to Brink two years ago and it was a very pretty game in terms of art but it failed so very hard on the implementation of AI (ruining singleplayer) and multiplayer matches were laggy as hell (ruining multiplayer). Gameplay needs to come first in all things when it comes to games. Which is why I find it hilarious that the makers of Call of Duty, a franchise known for its lack of gameplay innovation, makes that statement.