No matter how pre-teen and watery the imagery might get, this game could never appeal to 'casual gamers.' 'Casual masses', maybe - the graphics are decent (though nothing like the tech demo :P).

However, the things that should be simple are just too much of a hassle for the casual masses to bother with, the gameplay is too stagnant for most casual gamers to really enjoy over other titles, and the in-game mechanics and challenges really aren't that intuitively engaging or complex to really attract strong groups of hardcore players from other games (all of these things are becoming especially important since most of the game's base has already up and left or just plain moved on).