When Crytek showed the first trailer for Crysis 1 in March 2006, it looks a CGI videogame compared to anything else at the time.
http://www.gamespot.com/crysis/videos/crysis-official-trailer-1-6146726/
If you were a PC gamer at that time and you saw early PS3/360 games and then you saw this, your jaw hit the floor after seeing that. I went out and bought a $900 8800GTX Ultra just to play Crysis 1 and that card didn't even make a dent. I was chugging at <25 fps without everything maxed out settings. Considering you need
at least a GTX680 OC or HD7970GE to even hit 60 fps in Crysis at 1080P with AA now, back then Crysis 1 stomped all over 8800GTX Ultra SLI.
Even when NV launched a brand new $650 GTX280, Crysis 1 leveled that card too. It could barely get 35 fps, without VHQ settings enabled.
Crysis 1's graphics were absolutely revolutionary at the time. Crysis 2 in stock form failed to not only top Crysis 1, but couldn't even beat other great looking games like Witcher 2 or Metro 2033. It was a dismal failure for Crytek given Crysis 1's legacy. It wasn't just the tessellated ocean, but the fact that Crysis 2 did not look like a next generation game like Crysis 1 did.
My guess is most people skipped Crysis 1 entirely because their GPUs were simply too weak to play the game. Then they ended up playing the game in 2009-2010, at which point it no longer seems revolutionary to them. If you did have the luxury of owning 8800GTX or faster and could get a small glimpse of what Crysis 1 offered in 2007, it was stunning for the time. The only people who seem "butthurt" are those who can't recognize the leap in PC graphics Crysis 1 made because they probably couldn't even play the game in 2007, and thus they start twisting facts and history, pretending Crysis 2 or even 3 are doing the same thing Crysis 1 did. For Crysis 3 to be the same thing, the next generation card from NV like the Titan would be hitting 35 fps at 1080P, not even maxed out...