Not necessarily. I know it might be tempting to put an air of connoisseur, but really, AAA gaming is popular because those works actually received a lot of developers' attention and plenty of artists, game designers, level engineers, and yes - programmers have put their best effort to make the game look, feel and play just right.

There is a charm, a "soul" to small indie projects, but seriously claiming that AAA gaming is nothing but empty shell for philistines would be disingenuous. After all, the undying classics, be it The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, RDR, GTA, Stalker, The Witcher etc. are all AAA projects, with a notable exception of Minecraft that went mainstream against common AAA model.