Yo, I started FNV for my first time this week! A friend of mine is always raving about it, so he sent me instructions to get it all modded out (Viva New Vegas modlist), so I did that and I'm off to the races. So far so good... it was a bit of a grind to get past the first couple of quests (I kept getting my ass handed to me), but now that I've killed some convicts and stolen their stuff, I'm in much better shape. Also I figured out I can sleep in beds that aren't red.

I also heard that about not getting involved with factions yet...