Genki Books
 

I'm thinking about buying the 1st genki book, CDs and workbook. I've read good things about it but would like to hear the opinions on people who have perhaps used it before?

i like them. and as far as i know they are the best available.

I use it right now in class. It's really hard to go into great detail, but...
Positive: It will teach you all of the grammar/writing/vocab to form a solid command of Japanese.
Negative: It focuses solely on keigo, so everything you say will be super polite and unnatural. You'll have to relearn a lot of material to sound casual.

So basically, you'll be able to understand/speak/read/write Japanese, but you'll be talking like you're at a job interview all the time.

I wouldnt use it just by itself though, like not for example I am currently learning of michel thomas audio cds which are teaching me quite a bit.

Do you think if I had another learning source it would weed out the problems of being overly formal?

To be honest, I don't know about the other sources you had in mind so really it's just up to whether or not you can find study materials with less formal speech. Like I said, Genki will teach you Japanese, so I'm totally in support of the books, but it's just a matter of if you can find any secondary sources that will fit these needs.

Keigo? Surely you mean ~ますform. Genki doesn't really get into actual keigo till the end of Genki II. Yes masu is too formal to be using with friends, but it's not keigo-level formality. You can easily use it wandering around your daily life without seeming weirdly polite and unnatural. It would be just as odd to be walking around speaking solely in casual speech, and even down-right off if you speak to your teachers/older people without masu.

yea, I'd rather be too polite than be rude =\ but I'm sure I'll learn from other sources what is appropriate and such especially when I feel confident enough to post in japanese on this forum as everyone is pretty helpful

Polite language (teineigo) actually is considered keigo. At least according to both the English and Japanese wikipediae: 敬語 - Wikipedia

Not how most textbooks (genki included) label it though, so it's miss-leading if you say masu is keigo as everyone then thinks that it's super formal, super polite and totally out of place in the everyday, when it's more like... middling-polite. Talking-to-strangers polite not please-employ-me polite.

I am currently using them and i love the material very detailed and easy to follow.