What should a new chess player study?

I know that there have been a lot of threads on this very issue, what should a newbie at chess spend time on learning?  Well we know that eventually you must spend time on all three areas of chess, opening, middlegame and end game.  Openings are very important, because they set up the middlegame and the middlegame sets up the end game.  But we tend to thinks of chess as a rote memorization game, i.e. learn an opening line and all the common variations, as opposed to chess is a game about strategy and thinking and understanding what your opponent is going to do and what you need to do to win the game.  So for my 2 cents worth a newbie should learn opening theory not memorizing opening lines.  Once you have a basic grasp of opening theory, then you will be able to consistently get to the middle game and then the end game.  Understanding theory always trumps rote memorization IMHO.  Comments?