The EU Novels from Bantam are part of the lore forever embedded in my dna. I read the vast majority of them in MS and HS (that age pretty much formed the kind of media I enjoy today) and realize they are not high art, but I love almost all of them despite their flaws and simple storytelling.
The novels we are getting now are technically better, they are original (as in they aren't adapted from DH comics), the writing is more nuanced, and they are usually longer stories, and Into Charybdis is the apex of the EU novels, but I will not ever shit on the bantam novelizations just because of my past love for them.
If somebody gave me free reign to make an Alien story in either book or movie form, I cannot say I wouldn't be influenced by the old EU.
AvP2 also was a huge influence for me out of the EU.