I have read all previous posts and cannot confirm all of them. Flight sims do not affect real-life flying in a negative way, at least not for me or other flying mates I personally know.
The MS FS series is indeed a killer in terms of providing the user with that "real feeling" of flying, but it's rather good for practising IR flights etc. The younger half of my gliding club in Germany used to "play" a gliding flight simulator quite intensively and some of these guys actually were able to improve their skills in getting their turns quickly centered in the thermals etc.
What I most liked simulator-wise were not the civil simulators, but the high-end military simulators like Jane's F-15 and Falcon 4.0. Can't say if they simulate the feeling of a F-15 or a F-16 correctly, but they in deed are a good trainer in terms of basic skills you need for flying - just think of data inflow your brain can manage etc (zooming thru a valley at 600kts, being shot at, evading SAMs, finding your way to the target, drop ordnance on the target at the planned time +- 30 sec, still being shot at, return to base, using the cannon for targets of opportunity you have to recognize first (gunning a truck at a speed of 600kts (you, not the truck
) is rather hard), eventually knocking out a Fulcrum, and landing again.)
I think all the hours of flying simulators, and that's more for the military sims and not for the civil sims, have improved my general flying skills. You are used to keeping an eye on everything, which might give you extra time if something up there is not working as it should be (and might help you to recognize that early). I've just had my flying aptitude at the Luftwaffe in early 04 and found these skills helpful there as well.
Of course a FS 172 cannot simulate the feeling of a real-life 172 accurately, meaning that you should not transfer your flight sim landing techniques that are successful in a sim a/c to 1:1 to the real life equivalent, but in a nutshell, there are huge similarities.
Could it be that low-hour student pilots think FS affects their landings because the FS plane which they accumulate more hours on is actually their second type of aircraft and they find it hard to switch between those?
Ok folks, enough talking about sims - it's a sunny Saturday and I am off for the real thing!
