The interesting thing about this is "bringing back" Ripley/her family is largely a new development with 2 books and a game that haven't even come out yet. It's not like she shows up everywhere in the EU - she's in one comic book story arc/novelization (kinda), and she got literally resurrected in 'Alien Resurrection', and then in the sequel novel to that movie, 'Aliens: Original Sin'.
And yeah you had the option to play as her in some of the movie tie-in games (Alien Trilogy, Aliens arcade game, Alien3 console games, Alien Resurrection for PSX) but that was kind of expected.
I'm not saying bringing Ripley's family into the EU is a good idea (it's not), let alone as heavily as they seem to be intending to with these books and games, but it's also not like it's been done constantly for the last 30 years or something. It *is* something different from what we've been seeing lately, but it's still not *good*.