Graphic tilesets help. There are also a couple more advanced visualizers that are less for gameplay and more for viewing your fortress landscape in actual 3d, which is really nice.
The appeal in Dwarf Fortress is the vast range of possible game experiences -- near infinite -- due to procedural generation and limitless possible playstyles. Advanced graphics for the game are nearly impossible or wouldn't do the game justice due to the detail in which randomly generated events are described. I swear in one fight, I was told that an enemy axe swing severed the hair from a dwarf's left thumb.
Some people play it to build impressive architectural projects. Some play it for the !!science!! exploration of its deeper game mechanics, such as the physics engine (things like building magma cannons or computational devices). Others play it purely for the epic combat.
Personally, I play it for the deep emergent narrative, as you can see from reading mine or any of the other famous LP's. The events are so interesting and varied, and the game offers you an impressive amount of description of everything that happens while leaving you enough blank space to fill in on your own that you can take these building blocks and make them into a cohesive story. Every creature has its own unique detailed personality and physique, which has actual consequences on gameplay, and its own psychological and physical needs which make for tons of interesting situations. Not to mention every world is generated from scratch, from geological systems based on real life to the political interactions of civilizations built by intelligent creatures over time.
Just read the first few posts in The Tale of Baldedgilds. Everything I describe actually happened in the game. I cut out some unnecessary details and altered others slightly for cohesion. The dialogue I completely made up, as there is none actually in the game. Everything else actually happened in the game according to random generation. There was an epic, bare-fisted battle with two gargoyles. One of my dwarves did start a massive grass-fire that burned the entire landscape to ashes in the midst of this battle. One of those gargoyles really woke up suddenly from unconsciousness and ripped the guts out of one of my dwarves with its teeth before succumbing to death. That dwarf happened to be Pillarmarket's only friend, and she flew into a berserker rage from the grief and beat two of her injured companions to death. Even the means of death are accurately translated from the game. Pillarmarket's two victims actually died of suffocation as one had his lungs ripped apart as his rib cage shattered into them, and the other had her throat punched in. Dwarf Fortress has no HP system, as it actually simulates the bodily functions of its creatures, including every layer of tissue, blood flow, breathing, etc. The only ways a creature dies are from blood loss, suffocation, starvation, dehydration, disease, or brain damage.
Edit:
I admit, though, it's really hard to get into at first.
