The original game's lack of cutscenes wasn't some aesthetic choice they made, but a budgetary and technological one (they're expensive, require voice actors, and didn't really exist in gaming back then. Quality ones started to creep into strategy games after Starcraft showed people how to do them well, and that was half a decade after XCOM). How, exactly, does having a little cutscene when you develop a new weapon or interrogate a new alien detract from the game? I've seen some odd complaints before, but the very existence of cutscenes? Really?
