Need help buying cycling shoes

[Zen]

Most of the folks in my spin class seem to wear the SPD type cleats rather than the road shoes.

I think there are two questions to be answered here - cleat systems and shoe types.

For spinning the cleat system is cut and dried. They have to be SPD's
And as mentioned before , Performance or Nashbar cheapie shoes which will likely be a MTB type.

For road riding you'll have to decide on both shoes and clip systems which I won't even begin to address.

Road or MTB?
Frogs or SPD's?

Everybody has a preference.

[Crankin]

I bought my first shoes for spin, so they were mtb shoes with spds. I used them on my first road bike, with spd pedals. When I upgraded to a nicer bike, I got Speedplay pedals and road shoes and kept the old ones for spin. They were really too small for me, which I didn't find out until I bought a mountain bike and tried to wear them with thicker socks in the fall. So I got new mountain shoes, which, of course, I still use for spin.
I think you will find it easier to start with the one (spd's) and wear mountain shoes for road riding and then add in the road shoes/pedals when you feel comfortable. Of course, not everyone needs to do this, but I found once I had the confidence riding on the road with spds, it wasn't any transition to the Speedplays.