Oh my god, yes. If you look closely at some of the scenes, they look like they're ripped out of the book, frame by frame. There's so much detail in this movie, like the Veidt can Rorschach uses for the flamethrower, good god. The books look like they were made to be storyboards for a film adaptation, and you get the impression that Snyder did just that. As far as what non-geeks thought about it...they saw "from the director of 300" and were sold.

Watchmen
Trailer
(2:20)