*lol* I just had a random thought - but (I might be generalising here a bit - so forgive me) getting some of the gamers I've seen out of their chairs and into a position where they actually have to sweat a bit may take a bit of work
The Onion did a video along those lines as well ... about how boring actual army life is and making it into the next "ultra-realistic" war shooter - I'll have to see if I can find it again.
I did a summary once of what features would go into a FPS like that. I think if you have patience, a game like could be fun.
1: The game will be LONG. Close to 100 hours for SP and most everything would happen in realtime with minimal time laspces and sceinimatics. (There will be quick saves, you won't be forced with checkpoints.)
2: Very advanced location based damage. Basicly, if you get shot in the leg, you wouldn't die, but you would limp untill it get's patched up. You get shot in the arm, your aim would be off, but if you get shot in the wrist and the artery is cut, you bleed out if you don't get a medic. Or one shot to the chest and instant death. Stuff like that. (Same applies even for NPCs) The kinda stuff that would force you to be cautios in your advance.
3: Destructable environments. If you plant a big bomb on the ground, you will make crater there. You can dig fox holes almost anywhere. Lay, clear and move your own sandbags. and so forth.
4: VEHILCES! You can drive any vehicle anywhere if you can get into it and have a way to turn it on
5: 5 layers of stance:
Upright: Slow, big target, inaccurate fire, but silent to walk and strong melee attack.
Hunched: Smaller target (but still big), moderate melee attack, somewhat accurate fire, somewhat loud, but fast movement.
Crouched: Small target, slow, quite accurate fire, somewhat silent, weak melee.
Crawling: Inacurate fire, small target, completely silent, strong melee attack
Proning: Very slow, tiny target, completely accurate, completely silent, weak melee attack.
6: Leaning. Ever get a point where theres a peice of wood directly at eye level, but if you crouch, you just get the wall underneath it in your face. Well heres the remedy! the 4-lean! Lean up! Lean down! Lean right! Lean left! Or any combination of 2 of them.
7: Rounds that are affected by gravity, ricochet of certain surfaces, breack off small pieces from others. Lots and lots of debris that is potentialy deadly.
8: Multiple outcomes. No linear story line. Any battle can win or fail or enter a stalemate and no matter wich one, if you survived you continue somewhere elce.
9: 3rd party resourses. Food, water, if you don't eat, your preformance will drop. And realisticly. You won't get hungry every 20 minutes. Just eat in the game like you would regularly and make sure you eat enough. If you don't eat for like a day, you would eventualy begin feeling weak, move slower, aiming becomes harder, can't carry as much weight. That sorta stuff.
10: Unlimited environments. No indestructable doors, no 1/2 meter tall fences that can't be jumped over. If it looks like you can go there, you most likely can. Opens up alot more outcomes and methods of doing things.
11: Hazzards. Most games tend to both over, and under estimate how volitiles some things are. A barrel filled with crude oil will burn if you put an open flame to it, but not if you shoot it, and certanly won't explode with anything short of another explosion close to it. You can lay a wall of fire with those kinds of things. Propane and other gas tanks, even if they seem empty, will explode.
Basicly a game with alot of attention payed to the small details of the gameplay. It is possible. gonna need alot of harddrive space and CPU power, but if you cut down on unneccesary graphics and graphical features, it can be made cheaply and still be high quality.