Edit: After I typed all this I found this on the Debian Wiki. It's a bit more structured and less seat-of-the-pants than my instructions...
They don't mention the compiz-fusion-plugins-extra package though -- you are probably going to want that.
http://wiki.debian.org/Compiz
Unlike Ubuntu or the regular Mint you'll have to go through and manually turn on wobbly windows and the animations plugins and etc, but it's not too bad. It didn't take me very long to have it tarted up nicely.
If you've been using simple ccsm then the full ccsm may seem a bit daunting at first, but most of the eyecandy stuff is reasonably good at default settings. Also most settings have a decent explanatory tooltip if you aren't sure what they do. CCSM will tell you if you enable plugins that conflict with each other (some of them overlap with regard to functionality or keyboard shortcuts) so you can decide what you want to do.
If no one beats me to it, I'm happy to give some better help later tonight when I get home and have my LMDE install as a reference, but if you've fooled around with this at all before I think this should be enough to get you going.
I sorta sniffed my way through this, and again am not at my LMDE computer now, but here's loosely what I did --
Ensure compiz-core is installed (think it was by default)
compiz-fusion-plugins-main (also installed by default, I think)
and compiz-fusion-plugins-extra (not installed by default I think)
and compizconfig-settings-manager
I think compiz-gnome is pulled in as a dependency of something else, but be sure that is there too
Then you just fire up compiz config settings manager (in preferences) and start turning things on. Off the top of my head, you'll want to turn on these typical plugins:
GNOME compatibilty
Wobbly-windows
Animations
Animations Add-On
Window Decorations
If you want the typical cube effects you'll want
Desktop Cube
Rotate Cube
I'm also a big fan of Expo, Scale and Shift Switcher (bind Shift Switcher to Alt-Tab and you get a much nicer looking window picker)
You should also have a look at "Workarounds", and I think at least one of the others will tell you it requires regex matching to be turned on when you enable it. (Which it will then do for you.)
So, having done all that, you can check that it works by doing alt-f2 and typing "compiz --replace"
No matter what, you will lose compiz the next time you log out, so if things go crazy (and they shouldn't -- worst case nothing should happen), just ctrl-alt-backspace to restart x and log back in.
Assuming that they went well, there are a few ways to make compiz permanent.
My favorite way (but it's the least elegant or tech savvy way) is just to install fusion-icon. After you do that, add fusion-icon to Startup Applications. This will create an icon in the tray that you can use to turn Compiz off and on among other things, and it will turn it on when fusion-icon launches every time you login. I've been told that nvidia cards work much better with "loose binding" enabled (one of the options in the right-click menu of fusion-icon) and I have enabled it myself, but couldn't say whether it has made any difference.
You'll want to dig into the settings for the various plugins eventually, but I strongly recommend that you change only one thing at a time until you get comfortable with CCSM.
Hopefully this is enough to get you started. Anyone else can jump in to correct me if I got anything wrong or left something out.