I've recently been searching for a Supers game, myself.
Looking around, from what I've seen, if you want a good full-featured, fast, and very genre-oriented game, you'll like "Mutants and Masterminds".
You don't seem to need a DEGREE in cha-gen, but it can be kind of complex. The second printing (which is what you'll find in a store) is supposed to have an expanded section on character creation. Some guy named Simpson also has created a pretty nice Excel based Character Generation sheet which should REALLY speed up generation.
If you're familiar with D20 Modern, then "Blood and Vigilance" is a great buy. If you're good with D20 Modern characters, BnV characters are very easy to stat up because you just sort of layer the powers on top of traditional characters.
As far as the FLAVOR goes, M&M is very Four Color all the way through. Just reading over the combat rules makes you think POW, BAM, KABLOOEY, KAZAAAM! At 6th level characters will have Protection and Damage Saves high enough that most guns are entirely useless against them and they can POW, BAM! you in the kisser.
With BnV you can make a character that's pretty immune to bullets, but most of the time all of the various guns and weapons in d20 will be usable. If guns, ray guns, and the like are going to be a bigger part of your game, BnV might be for you. BnV can handle a PC who wants to be Cyclops or Pyro and they'll feel like Cyc or Pyro. It can also do Sgt. Rock or something with guns akimbo and he'll feel like a guy with GUNS. In M&M a character with guns feels exactly the same as a character WITHOUT guns ... one is "Ruby Beams, +5 L" and the other is "Big Gun, +5 L" they cost the same and are aquired the same, it's just semantics for the most part. ("Device" is a flaw, making a power cheaper, the trade-off being you can have the power "taken away" if you lose your "Device", I.E., gun.)
Both are pretty easy to use. If you have experience with D20Modern I think Blood And Vigilance would be easier to pick up, as you already know 90% of character generation. There's the added plus that BnV is less than 1/3 the price of M&M.
If you much prefer POW, KAZAAAM!, and putting together character based around their powers, M&M may be better for you. BnV can definately do POW, KAZAAM, but guns will be handled exactly the same as they are in d20 Modern, giving a different sort of flavor to the whole game.
So, in the end, it depends on what you want to do and what flavor you'd like your game to have.
EDIT: One thing I also love about BnV is it has an Origin built right in for people who have ABSOLUTELY NO super powers. It ramps up Skills and Feats aquisition and Stat upgrades. This means you can run Very Talented Normals along-side Super Humans and it feels like there is a difference. They stay pretty balanced all the way through, as well With M&M, even if you have no "super powers" you'll have to buy "powers" for your character ... again, you buy the same sort of powers and add semantic variance to it. Instead of Ruby Beams +5 you take Huge Hand Cannon +5. Instead of Flaming Fist Strike +5 you take Talented Ninja Guy Strike +5, etc etc.
--fje
