Why make sloppy pop-up text "tutorials" that give away all the mechanics / dynamics (I'm looking at you, BioShock) when you can have extremely elegant level design teach the skills and let players work things out for themselves?
Portal 2 did it. Almost every Stephen Lavelle game does it. Most recently, Impasse (via IndieGames.com) does it too.
Remember, less talk and more rock.
