I originally started with Microsoft Movie Maker - cos it was free. Then found it was a little limiting, and was often causing hell with my desktop PC's video card. I then played with
Lightworks (free), followed the tutorials, played some more, then went out and splurged $60 on the Pro version - love it!
It isn't that hard to use out-of-the-box for some basic stuff, and does seem to be a little complicated for the extra stuff. However, if you're going to create a lot of video, this is certainly the go (you don't really need the Pro version). You have almost limitless control of what you want to do.
Spend an hour looking at the
video tutorials here.
Rob.