When designing nearly any type of game, you want your players' victories to feel meaningful. Nowadays, games often reward success with positive feedback systems like cutscenes, in-game items or achievements, but for XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead designer Jake Solomon, the real way to make a player value success is to put something meaningful at stake.
Real gamers play X-COM. I can't wait for all of the crying when the game is "too hard" for our modern generation of CoD junkies (and believe me, I'll be crying too when Sgt. Pepper gets killed by a lucky alien plasma grenade :_:)
Yeah, most games would never attempt this because, to them, it would mean less sales. Personally, I think its better to draw a real, faithful, hardcore fan base that really loves the game.
GOTY.