I'd say that it's better to start off with installing vundle (https://github.com/gmarik/vundle/) and then whenever you feel like you're having problems doing something like file/buffer navigation, auto-completion or making vim pretty then go out looking specifically for something you like and vunlde will make it really easy to install just by pointing at the github.

Whatever you do, don't install syntastic unless you want your vim to run awfully slow.