Minecraft’s art direction is very cool and was, at the time, pretty unique. Arguably it was one of the most striking things about the game at the time, and definitely what got me interested back when it came out.
It was also objectively "stolen" from another block based game that was super niche. Minecraft did well because "go out into the wilds and modify it to your will while you build a home at your own pace" is crack to the human brain. Plenty of other games tried the art style and it doesn't really add anything on it's own.
