I've heard that argument, but recently I've started to disagree with it. I can only speak to my limited experience, but my three prior gigs have all wanted some amount of "passion", but never once was I expected to work 50/60+ hour weeks as a result. There was crunch time once where we came in on a Sunday and the company paid for lunch and dinner, but that was it.

Anyway, now when I see that companies want "passionate" people, I interpret it to mean "convince us you're enthusiastic enough during the interview". It's all a game of how much you can bullshit. I like to believe that most managers, and especially most developers, realize that most code isn't "sexy", because most software isn't "sexy" and most developers are working on most software.

Caveat: I work in the Midwest. Maybe things are different in Silicon Valley, where every startup seems to fancy itself as changing the world.