I couldn't see why the command-line xsp command didn't work until I realised there is an not-very-well-advertised xsp4. At which point I guess the 2 in xsp2 means .Net 2 rather than, say, xsp version 2. So now I know that:
To run an Asp.Net 4 or 4.5 web application you need
xsp4; whereas to run an Asp.Net 2 (or 3 or 3.5) app you needxsp2.
man xsp4 returns nothing, but the switches all seem to be the same as you'll find with man xsp. So to run your MVC4 web app from the command line, cd to the web app directory and just run xsp4.