The HD video is one of the features that is totally amazing about Canon 5D Mark II. You can't go wrong with it and not being a professional won't be a problem at all.
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Buying a camera like this is no guarantee for excellent pictures. Your own skills are still needed.
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I don't mean to sound arrogant here, but it's a lot of camera, which you need a lot of lens for to take advantage of, and will provide you with few benefits over a crop sensor based camera as a new photographer. That the camera is overkill is somewhat evidenced by your comment on "all those extra settings". If you take the same snapshots on a 5DII, they'll be a bit sharper if you print them huge, but your photos won't actually be any better.

In fact, the 5DII has LESS settings than the cheaper consumer SLRs, because they have useless scene modes, and the 5DII doesn't. You get manual, the priority modes, program mode, and full auto. The custom modes just let you set stuff the way you want so you can have something prepared for something you may encounter on a regular basis. That's it.

Usage of a 5DII isn't going to be any different from usage of a 5D, or a 20D, or a 50D. It's nearly the same interface, and the settings to the same thing on every single camera. You'll just get results that have more pixels.

The primary advantages of the full size sensor are that you'll get less noise, so high ISO photos will look better, and you have more resolution, so large prints look better. By large, I mean 16x24" and larger. If you're printing an 8x12, there's not going to be much in the difference between a 5DII and 50D or D90. There will be no real difference when reduced to a computer screen in size or prints at 8x12 and smaller when shot at low ISOs.

Here's a nice photo I took. You won't suddenly be able to do better without learning quite a bit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forbes_jeff/54517169/sizes/l/

I shot that on the original Digital Rebel, with the kit lens that came with it, which is a terrible, terrible lens. The boy is blurry due to the slow shutter speed, not the lens, he wasn't being still - and a 5DII wouldn't have changed that at all. Here's the thing - even with a lens with soft corners, it didn't matter. it didn't make the picture worse. The fact that it was a 6 megapixel camera didn't make it worse, either.
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