It depends on what type of tone you prefer. name some of your favorite bands or types of music you like. Generally if you like classic rock or blues (Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn) I would recommend a Squier Cool Vibes Strat, you want a guitar with single voice coil pickups for the best tone for this type of music.
If you like heavy rock, alternative or metal (Guns & Roses, Green day) get a Les Paul clone like the Epiphone with Humbucker pickups.
If you like country music, get a telecaster
The stat style guitar will have a higher tone than a Les Paul.
Regardless of which guitar you pick, it will play much better if you get it setup professionally or learn to do it yourself, the action will need adjusted for sure and a nice fret leveling and dressing will make it play like a guitar worth three times as much. Without a good setup the guitar will be much tougher to learn to play on.
Here is IMO an entry level brand that is just as good and usually better than the cheaper Squiers or Epiphones. SX guitars
http://www.rondomusic.com/electricguitar.html Your better off with a 100$ guitar and pay 50-80$ for a pro setup than a 300$ guitar without a setup.
I would pick one of the SX guitars under 100$ and a little fender champion 600 tube amp for about 150$ and it will sound so much better than any cheap Squier or Epiphone kit that comes with a crap sounding cheap solid state amp for 200$, trust me. If you buy the kit, shortly after you will ditch the amp it came with looking for a new one.