Moving and working have occupied my time. 278 hours at work in 4 weeks
On to guitar.
If you plan to just dabble in it, a lower end electric is the way to go. Rather, unless you're hell bent on getting an acoustic, get an electric. The strings are generally gauged in .009" or .010" whereas an acoustic will be gauged in .013". That doesn't seem like much, but the tension makes for much more painful playing early on. That will make you more reluctant to pick it up as often and you will become discouraged.
Guitar playing is (for many) about reaching milestones. Early on, those milestones are largely about technique and playing a few songs. When you start with an acoustic, which have much heavier string gauges and action (distance from strings to fretboard), those milestones are much, much more difficult to reach. Again, this is discouraging and will often lead to apathy or quitting altogether.
A good electric would be a used Ibanez or Schecter. Those will work with many different genres due to the diverse tones that can be had with them. For more classic rock and blues types, a Fender or Epiphone would be the better option. For metal, anything with EMG pickups would be fine. My preference is an Ibanez 7620 7-string. I play prog, so no one tone will work for me; I have to have many. That particular guitar is, for all intensive purposes, a Prestige, which is the ultimate in tone, quality, finish, reliability, playability, etc.
I'd recommend a lower end Ibanez either way. That isn't because I'm biased, only that I've had over 30 guitars and they are some of the most versatile and financially accessible. Always buy used. A pretty guitar is only that: a pretty guitar. I'd rather have a beat up high end guitar than a lower end guitar that doesn't sound as good. Go to any forum and you'll see a general consensus that agrees with me.
You'll also need an amp. As mentioned above, a Vypyr is a great option. Those rival the Line 6 brand which I prefer. Those are the most versatile amps available for under $1500. The last time I checked, you could get a Vypyr or lower end Line 6 for $100 new. Add to that a used Ibanez or Fender, cable, picks, and a strap, and you can be sitting pretty well off for under $300.
I have over $4000 in my current setup, but I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 5x that on various gear getting to where I am with how happy I am with my tone. Buy cheap to start with and you won't waste money on something that you aren't sure that you'll want 6 months down the road. There's nothing worse than dropping 4-digits on a piece of equipment only to get it home and plugged in and never find that happiness that you hoped for.
The other thing about an acoustic is that it is limited. You have to put forth so much more effort to play the same thing than someone on an electric. People will argue that there is no difference or that I need to man up and fight through the time required to get better, but I'd bet everything I own that I can play more than those people can on my electric. It isn't that I'm saying that I'm better, just that an acoustic requires more to get the same thing. Hell, I have so many guitars right now and no place for them that I'll send you one of my good ones for free if you can convince me that you're getting into music to the extent that I am.
If you're on the edge of diving off into music, do it and don't look back. I've been into motorsports and music for well over half of my life, and I can assure you that there is much more of a personal journey to be had with music than ATVs. Don't get me wrong, I love ATVs just as much as anyone else on here, but I'm being realistic. You have the topics of guitars and accessories, amps, effects, etc., and the musical side where you have theory, composition, analysis, etc., the technique side of picking, sweep picking, tapping, chords, arpeggios, etc., and the endless hours of sitting and really getting into the music composed by others like you never would have before. You can occupy your time for months on a single topic and never cover it all, which is the fun part. You'll never learn it all. No one will. That's the fun of it. You'll spend your time doing whatever it is that you want to learn and you'll talk with others about the things that they've learned, and you'll find that the possibilities of what you can become as a musician are infinite. You make your own path and you have fun all the while. After all, you play music, you don't work music.
I'll sum it up like this: The things that most positively affected my life are meeting my wife and becoming a musician.
