[OpenXCOM Total Conversions - Check them out]

For a while now, people at openxcom.org have been making total conversions. I think these are worth looking at - they give a great insight into what works, what people are interested in, and for some really interesting ideas. For instance, Piratez and The X-Com Files are really cool with some very interesting ideas. 

[Collected musings from Xcom fans]

I think the complain about being bland is about how Xenonauts was much less consistent in the way it did things than X-Com. I'll explain what I mean.

In X-Com, every single object and item was the same sort of thing. You could get it on the Battlescape, you could store it in your storeroom, and you could transfer it. In Xenonauts, much of that is abstracted away - corpses are disposed of, alien weapons are sold off or sent to Research, some things are automatically upgraded, other things aren't. It doesn't feel as authentic.

That, and the fact that there are less "Cool tactics" you can do in Xenonauts. In X-Com, you can prime C4 and have your men suicide bomb the aliens. Not so in Xenonauts. 

It just isn't as cool, isn't as interesting. The game's atmosphere is absolutely great, and gets just as tense as X-Com ever does. That isn't the problem.