I can confirm all of this. MPLS is cheap. The winters blow less and less as you suffer through more and more of them, though.
Regarding the arts, the local music scene is pretty awesome and has plenty of cool venues, apparently we're #1 in theater seats per capita or some silly statistic, and there are also great [mostly free] museums in town.
Uptown is a nice place to live, and has plenty of express bus routes that will get you to the U in 10-15 minutes. However, there's more reasonable rent in other neighborhoods with similar amenities (Longfellow/Seward area, Northeast, etc). I've lived in Northeast MPLS for the past 2.5 years and love the neighborhood and would highly recommend checking it out as well.