The Finder has a pretty wide range of view options. I'm not sure what it is that you're missing about Windows Explorer exactly, but have you tried all the view options? In Finder, toggle on View -> Show Toolbar and View -> Show Path Bar, and then try the four buttons across the top ('View as icons, list, columns, cover flow.')
Toolbar will give you back/forward buttons, path bar will show you the directory tree to where you are, and columns gives a nice sort of 'contextual' sense of what's in a directory and where it is.
At some point, once things are starting to gel a bit for you, I'd encourage a skim through a list of
keyboard shortcuts. There's all sorts of nifty little features that are under-publicized, like
springloaded folders.