Fred Cook: It’s all about the suspension & intended use. I would find out where you want to ride first, and what type of riding before I would buy a bike. If you want to do dirt roads or hiking/multi-purpose trails a hard tail/cross country bike with 90 -100mm shocks are great. Steeper drops, rock gardens, and longer rough riding a all-mountain/enduro is better with 120-160mm shocks. Fast down hill/Summer Ski Slopes and you may want to go with a down-hill set up. If you want it for simple exercise and around the park and neighborhood, a $500-800 hard tail is all you need. Even some of the hybrids are better if you are sticking to more street.
$2,000-3,000 seems like a sweet-spot for the best value. Carbon usually bumps it up a thousand or two for the same model. If you buy last year’s model or a 2 year old-stock you can save a couple thousand $$….or buy a bike on Craig’s list or E-bay that someone thought they liked but never rode.
Good luck!