Almost all games feature lowpoly characters. They manage to make them LOOK high poly by for example making a highpoly version and then using this as a normalmap(or is it called heightmap) on a lowpoly version of the model or using it as a texture for the lowpoly version of the model. Also if you use LOD you can get away with making the models slightly higherpoly when they are closeby the camera.
Also the amount of models onscreen make a difference. In fighting games where you only see two models at the same time you can get away with using much more polygons for a model than in a rts that has a lot of models onscreen at a time.