That doesn't look... awful? For realtime graphics on a 120hz screen, that's not any worse than Memojis and leagues better than whatever Samsung's ill-fated AR garbage was.
I get a kick out of watching companies take the piss for bad art direction, but I really struggle to imagine a better solution here. Would people prefer photo-scanned faces mapped onto a low-res mesh? Methinks it would be even further into the uncanny valley...