Facebook games?

Everyone on earth is STILL playing farmville, Mafia Wars, and oodles of other video games on various social networks. The legendary game creator Sid Meier now claims he's making a Civilization game for facebook, as well!

Yet I've done everything I can to avoid "social network-based" video games. I spend too much time on both social networks and video games separately already.

That I don't spend time with this particular breed of video game, however, also means I can't attest to their quality. I CAN say, however, that they certainly LOOK like garbage - Farmville = cheap graphics, loading issues, and time-based gameplay that rewards prolonged screen exposure as opposed to skillful time management.

Why not just play one of the better iterations of Harvest Moon instead? Is there really something different about them?