I'm really glad that this game came out after I was an adult with a full-time job. Otherwise, I would not have the excuse to not dive into it and inevitably be sucked in. As it is, I can walk away, justifying that I just don't have time to figure the game out. I liked DF when trying it out, but I think I enjoy just reading about it more.
Given the current UI, you'd have all the excuse you need. I gave it an honest shot but I just can't get too invested in a game that requires a few hours of reading wikis and watching YouTube.
If you walked into dwarf fortress fully knowledgeable about the UI and game mechanics, you'd have a relatively dull experience with very few surprises.
Being such an expansive game, you don't need to know every single command or hotkey just to get a fortress started. The fun lies in not knowing what you're doing, encountering something unexpected, then adapting to that unexpected situation, either by learning something else about the game, or applying your previous knowledge in a creative fashion.
Remember that people don't write stories and comics about dwarf fortress because they knew exactly how to handle every hurdle the game threw in their direction.
That's what I loved about Minecraft for the first few months too. People keep whining about putting the "recipes" in game and making it easier, but the whole process of researching, looking up YouTube videos, reading the wiki, etc, was what made it fun because it felt like you were learning something useful, despite just being a game.
Playing DF, is roughly analogous to reading the Illiad, or a similarly complex work of Literature.
Now DF isn't the Illiad of the gaming world, yet. But the experience of parsing it, generally ends up expanding your perspective of what games should be, and how they should be played.
I'm by no means saying I want the game spoonfed to its players with "press X to win" cutscenes, but I do think it could take some steps toward usability, that's all.
Also, what is a "serious gamer"? What does that even mean?
