Her POV. His POV. We all got a blankety-blank POV!

I think it might be disconcerting to start with a side character you never return to.

I probably wouldn't mind it at first -- especially if it's done well -- but once I got into the book I might begin wondering, What happened to that first fellow, the one who opened this whole thing?

The genre you're working in might make a difference. I don't think it's something I would do in a thriller, but the POVs in thrillers are normally pretty streamlined. However, you do see things like that sometimes in fantasy and science-fiction (mostly fantasy? I'm thinking of George R.R. Martin) novels.

Rather, this said character is going to give us a quick insight into my hero not being the cold-hearted figure he might appear in the next scene

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This is just a variation on telling instead of showing (and it also ruins your rising conflict/tension by giving everything away). You're bringing on a puppet to tell the reader what you'd have to show otherwise. If the reader doesn't know or care about the character who's giving an opinion, the reader has no reason to believe his opinion. If the reader sees the hero acting cold-hearted, that "showing" won't be outweighed by some random person having said he was a real softy.

Instead, show the reader that he's a softy. Or let the reader think he's cold-hearted and wonder about it for a bit before you show he's really a softy. Why give away all the tension by announcing to the reader: he's not as bad as he seems. If you're going to portray him as cold, and you're not in his pov, sharing his emotions that justify his behavior, then use that behavior to ramp up the tension and make the reader worry. Worry = good, when it comes to storytelling. Let him be cold, let the reader worry about the ramifications of his being cold, and then, clue by clue, show the reader that he's not so cold, or he has good reasons for it. Perhaps the secondary character (who was going to tell the reader the hero is a good guy) could, instead, show through his actions (therefore never having to go into the secondary character's pov) that the hero has some goodness in his depths. For instance, the secondary character has a stutter, and the hero helps him to cover up his embarrassment when he struggles with a word. Showing that sort of thing is much more effective than having the secondary character think "he's a good guy who never makes fun of my stutter, even when everyone else does."

JD

You can do it any way you want, but there's a price to pay. In this case, you're starting with a character that the reader won't be vested in and may not stick with your story. If your story is compelling enough it might be okay, but at first blush it sounds like a band-aid. Why not just tell if from the POV of the character with the most interesting problems?

It's OK to let your hero seem cold-hearted. Makes it all the more interesting (and challenging) to reveal that he isn't what he seems.

Character redemption rocks.

As a reader, I hate being inside the head of a character who then deserts me. It's okay to use different POV, but I would go with option B: Just give us the important scene with hero being turkey and then show us that he isn't really a turkey.

I try to have as few POV characters as possible. This does make the writing process more challenging, but in the end I think the story benefits. The POV changes adopt a rhythm and allow the reader to concentrate on what's happening, without having to suddenly shift sideways and see the world through a new pair of eyes.

POV

I agree with Jan here. You can either have a side character come on and tell us about the main character, or you can actually have the main character do things that show us what kind of person he is.