Other than choosing higher resolutions and scalable ui/font's is there anything else being done to make thing's shiny or cool?

Dynamic lighting layer, fireballs reflecting correctly off of walls. Looks amazing.
 

I also read through some heated discussion about some sort of blur effect at the edges of the screen. Havent noticed the effect on any of the youtube footage Ive watched though. 

 

The blur is when the player is fatigued. It looks bad, but apparently it was done for a reason. I would simply prefer no blur.