What doesn´t work for a brand new user is the amount of stuff you have. I think you should put visible only the most important information (to your business) and lose the rest.
You don´t have a clear "pecking order" on the homepage, I can´t understand what I should read first, what after that and what then...
I think you may need to take a step back and plan an infrastructure for all the links. This should help you identify a few buckets and organize the rest of the content under each. This should eliminate the 3 different sets of navigation you have. Then, build your layout around the site map. You may find that you need a vertical navigation column to account for all the links if you are unable to organize them into a few buckets.
The logo is way to segmented. If possible, see if you can redesign so there aren't so many elements in this logo.
This site is extremely busy and needs to be simplified in a big way. I know you need ads but giving them more of a focus then your logo isn't going to be good in the long term. You have too much content which is kind crowding the design and then you navigation looks super intimidating.
These comments are all very useful. As we move forward in our redesign I can see us implementing nearly all of these suggestions...thanks all.
You should trim down the top Nav Bar. Take a look at your click map and see what customers value. If you can categorize by logic and popularity then great.
If you look at this above the fold (Imagine it starts at 768px here) than the layout here is good outside of the top nav Also, remove the header ad banner, it adds to the business (Put the search there and follow convention, making the area search is in less busy).
If you do that, and get down to one nav bar, than you have it. Below the search, it well organized given the type of site.
You will want to add clarity to the rotating hero banner. If you are intent on this type of display, make sure you show the user what frame they on and how to get back to it. Don't do more than 4 and sure the main CTA is on the 2nd slide to start (test this of course), which is what gets read since the 1st slide happens before the user is even oriented to the site.
Hope this helps.
I dont like logo.
I dont like design cause it is too crowded too much content per page.
Too big banners and too small space for information.
Try to make balance better.
Then play with colors - adding some light will help you to make design looking easy and lite.
play with fonts.