I have tried a significant number of German programs. I have Rosetta Stone, which is a computer program that uses pictures combined with a German speaker. It has a nice voice analysis feature, where it will rate your German inputted by a microphone of some kind. This program is often tauted as one of the best, but I believe it isn't.

I also have Pimseleur German. I find this audio only program good for developing a good German accent, although without a German speaker listening to you, you could very well be making numerous mistakes reapeatly without knowing it. I know, because I used these CDs on my own, and then in the presence of my Swiss girlfriend.

The best program, other than going to an intensive German program of some kind, currently I've been going to inlingua for the last 3 months, and can recommend them, is Digital Publishing Inensivkurs Deutsch. Teaches you everything: explains grammar concepts, has you listen to native speakers, has a voice analyzer that analyzes each word you speak, not just a red/yellow/green indicator like Rosetta. The best feature of the program IMO is that you can right click on any word you don't know and a dictionary definition will pop up with the pronunciation in a male or female voice. You can also then add the word in question to your vocab list to study later. I feel as if I should get some kick back from DP for all this praise.

If you don't want to take my word for it, you can test the program out by going to a reputable book store and asking for the demo CD. We were actually looking for an English program for my future Swiss parents-in-law, and tried several programs. DP was ahead of all the rest we thought. You can buy the program seperate for 78CHF or together (1 and 2 which covers through B2 level) with a vocab trainer for 168CHF. Hope this helps.