Yesss, go play the original :3 It is a time honored tradition watching a new player lose an entire squad at the foot of the landing ship. If you do play, grab openxcom it's a fantastic engine replacement and even supports mods.

The new games are more like playing an action movie. The old one is more like balancing a war where soldiers are meat with a dollar value. One of my favorite missions was doing a desperate tech smash and grab to get my research back on track. Over a dozen soldiers dead, more were left behind, many I had hired just for this so they basically showed up and shipped out to die. It was a massacre and a success