In order to give a toss about a game (or anything, really) you have to see the "awesome". That thing that makes you go "ooh nice". You don't have to see all of it and indeed it doesn't have to be real either but you do have to see something. Thats why you have film trailers that make films look great when they're actually crap, or ok but you've already seen all the good bits.
It's also why getting people to play DF by handing them a copy and sitting them down to play doesn't really work - the awesome in DF is not immediately obvious. The awesome in DF is vast, complex and so powerful you could run cities off it if only it could be harnessed but it isn't obvious when you first sit down to play. When you first start playing, you have no clue what you are doing, why or how and you need to find that out. You're not going to bother unless you've got some idea of the legendary awesome buried beneath the surface and the best way to learn that is by being told the stories.
So if you want your friends to play, just tell them the stories - you could point them to Boatmurdered, tell them the epic saga of your insane duchess who inexplicably killed her baby then threw herself into the moat, of the demons from the deep, or that tale about the artefact sock, the cannibal elves and the goblin horde. Don't try and make them play it, just show them the awesome, if they recognise it they'll get stuck in, if they don't, well, you tried and it's their problem now.