A good artist will make anything look good, pixel art, card games, all the way to photo-real 3d (of course depending on the artist). What happens is that in general the first thing to be cut due to budget is probably the art since without function you have no game. Imho, indie games would do better if they "sliced" their game releases differently, such that art was never takes a back-seat as it is probably tempting to do. Many people think you only need good gameplay but in reality the art, aesthetics, music, etc. of any game is the invisible factor that people are influenced and only notice when it's broken.