Well, I can just tell how it looks in my games... Half Life 2, Assassins Creed 1,2, like I said old games are looking okay for me. I meant games older then 2011, which means made BEFORE 2011. I don't know why you tell me about games which are made after 2011 and are obviously ugly as shit, I totally agree with it. Witcher 3 looks ugly for me too.
The SMAA thing is: In Assassins Creed black flag you can choose between TAA, MSAA, FXAA, SMAA (when I remember correctly) and every mode creates incredibly ugly flimmering in trees and bushes EXCEPT SMAA. In the outer worlds in a total nightmare. Every Hair has those flimmering, and the game just offers TAA. So, its unplayable. In mad max you can improve it when you deactivate the game own anti-aliasing and use reshade to use SMAA (for me). But sadly, it doesn't fix the shadows.