Shinoda Yagami

If you are not a masochist, try Diablo 3 instead.

Depends on your playstyle, mostly. I've found melee characters to be harder to work with in PoE as opposed to a mid-long range attacker that can hit and run.

But, there are heaps and heaps of ways to customize your character, so just experiment.

I would recommend to always make characters on the current available league though, since you can get more rewards in them as opposed to the standard.