I haven't played in a couple months. My biggest complaint was gear all looked the same, even if it had cool artwork. I saw the new list of helm artwork on reddit and the new unique's such as alpha's howl. Does the wolf head actually appear ingame or does it just end up looking like a default helm?

nope.

they changed a few uniques to look different in game

sadly alpha's isn't one of them yet.

It was the reason i bought it when it first came out but it didn't doesn't really matter still worth using

Dang, they need to delay adding new items to the game and get to making gear look different. The helm looked freaken sweet, but it'll be sad if they all look like old gear.

I wish armor looked more badass, everything is shite

The developers that create new content (like adding new uniques) are not the same developers that create the artwork for said uniques. Delaying the addition of new items would absolutely not help you achieve what you want. If anything, they would need to hire more people to create the art.