I've enjoyed using SLIDE in the past, it's powerful and user friendly, I think they are on version 6 or 7 now, I used 5 primarily. It's 2D and works well with water issues and seismic loads. For straight real world analysis of common earth structures and slope stability, the non-PhD-type stuff, it worked well for me. The interface is like a real simple autocad X,Y coordinate or you can graphically draw it. A coworker took about 10 minutes initially to show how to get going on it then from there the menus were such that I didn't have to study manuals, I could just play around with it to find and do what I wanted.