I got this for Xbox 360 to give me my fix but the graphics are almost unbearable compared to previous games. What's the deal with this? And do the next gen versions actually look worth it?

Because it wasnt really made for current gen in mind. And by current I mean last gen now I guess

Because the hardware is from 2005.

From what I saw I don't think it looked any worse than 3 did on 360.

Next gen versions are fine, but Frostbite 3 barely runs well on old consoles.

Because the Xbox 360 is 8 years old and Frostbite 3 while scalable is built primarily with PC and the new machines in mind. Odds are they had to cut back further visually in order to accommodate some of the new systems and beefed up destruction in the game.

It's probably a miracle the game even runs on the 360

And PS3. The Ps3's actually worse for multiplatform because of 128MB GPU RAM.

Also Frostbyte 3 has physics and descruction and such. That's taxing CPU-wise, so graphics detail was probably cut on last gen to improve performance. Therefore it's shitty looking, even for a last-gen game.

It has 256MB of GPU ram.