Not to mention the dozens of "DF with graphics!" clones currently living on Steam... none of which remotely approach the complexity and flexibility of the original (though they do look better and have better UIs)
Rimworld is a very direct clone of Dwarf Fortress, but in a Sci Fi setting and by a professional game dev. Tynan Sylvester previously worked on BioShock Infinite.
It has proper graphics (though simple, it is a one man project). It includes utilities like Dwarf Therapist. The random events are not so random, but tries for better story telling.
There are some limitations, which might or might not be fixed. For example, there is no digging down, only one z layer, so you cannot build elaborate fatal traps.
Chris Delay has called PA "my very own Dwarf Fortress" and it was directly inspired by his work on Subversion, a failed "universal simulation" game based on similar ideas as DF.
Subversion tried to generate everything and have deeply complex simulations -- mostly because he realized Introversion couldn't design every last detail by hand at the scale the project was trying to provide. PA itself was actually directly the result of Chris realizing that he had more fun trying to build these intricate simulated scenarios than actually playing them.
There's a beautiful demonstration of Subversion where he shows a heist scenario with intricate alarm and security systems and how the player could just bypass all of it by simply shooting people -- that was apparently the dying blow to the project.
