it depends on the game engine and the platform. Some games have characters that are 10,000+ polys, others are much lower. The next-gen consoles can push a certain number of polys per frame (depending on whatever other processes are also being computed at render time) so it just depends on what the game requires. If it's like a fighting game, with just 2 characters on the screen at once, they can be really high. If it's a squad based action game with maybe a dozen on screen at once, they'll be lower. if it's a Real time strategy game, with hundreds of units on screen at once, they'll be lower. So it all just depends on what you're doing.