What type of character designs appeal to you most in a game?

[MechDeus]

Hard for me to say. I like stuff that's new and different, variations on popular/typical designs, generally stuff like that.

For those who have Silent Bomber, take a look at the in-game mechanical designs, those rock. Xenogears also has some great mechanical designs, both for the big ships as well as some of those Ultimate forms.

By and large, there is always one thing that will get me past any sort of design, no matter how bad it is: good, quality animation. Put in lots of gorgeous frames of movement (Alucard in SotN) or well-done rotating sprites (especially the bosses in Mischief Makers or SotN), and I'll love you like a puppy.

[BioMechanic]

The less realistic, the better. And I DON'T mean anime style.

The more imaginative, the better (e.g. Voldo, Klonoa w/his floppy ears, limbless Rayman, Max from MDK2).

I love games with steampunk design (Strikers, Garegga, GW2, GunValkyrie) - familiar yet alien; as if from a nearby alternate reality.

[Clash!]

It really depends on the type of game, and I think everyone can agree on that. I want my 2D fighters to be cartoony, with a foot in the realm of realism, like KoF and SF. I want my 3D fighters to be as real as humanly possible though, cartoons of humans often look odd in 3D. I tend to want 3D as real as possible, nothing looks worse than when they try to do the whole huge Spike hair (like Cloud for example) in 3D, just looks retarded. I am a huge fan of crazy Japanese over the top design, but not so much of the desing of say Last Blade, the whole Edo type period stuff is not my favorite. Thats all I really have to say on that.