Welcome from Indy. +1 on the above suggestions. Also, look on the interwebs for homebrew clubs in your area. They're a great resource. You can likely get some hands-on observation/experience with local homebrewers before sinking a lot of $$ into equipment that you may quickly outgrow. FWIW, IMO skip Mr. Beer kits. The other online vendors you mentioned have great kits for beginners, so I would go with their suggestions.
My $0.02: Start with a kettle that will allow you to do a full wort boil (7.5 to 10 gal kettle capacity for a 5-6 gallon batch), a propane burner, and immersion chiller. Long story short-- these items will make for a more fun/efficient brew day, they'll be useful throughout the life of your hobby, and they will improve your beer. Kitchen/stovetop 5 gallon batches are not much fun and take forever, in my experience.
Keep your first few batches simple. Save the boutique 'Triple oaked strawberry infused sour lemon tart cherry coffee IPA's' until you are comfortable with the basic process and are happy with a few batches of standard beers like American Pale Ale, Irish Stout, American Wheat or ESB (there's probably several I'm missing, but you get the point).
Use a homebrew-specific plastic bucket to ferment your first few batches and skip secondary fermentation which is really not necessary for most ales, assuming you let the beer ferment 12-18 days and bottle once the beer reaches final gravity. You can always add extra buckets and carboys down the road when your desire for brewing exceeds your fermentation capacity.
Focus on sanitation, sobriety, and note-taking during brew days. That may sound lame, but getting smashed before wort hit the fermenter has never helped my beers. ...plenty of time for drinking afterwards
Above all, have fun, and welcome to HBT !
