I got into RC cars earlier this year after a bad experience with RC planes. With the planes, everyone told me buy "the best" so I wouldn't have to "rebuy" better stuff later on. I was also told, "get a plane with ailerons, lipos, blah, blah, blah". A few months later after only getting the plane in the air only a few times, I sold all the stuff for a loss because it was too much of a hassle. I was so concerned about my kids crashing my carefully built plane, so they never got a chance to fly them). In short, had a gone with a cheaper RTF plane, I'd probably still be flying planes.

I came to this forum and read the huge "HBX" thread and bought an electric on-road car. Right out of the box it was a blast (for $100), even though again, people told me I'd hate it, it was a cheap car, you should have gone nitro, brushless, lipo, blah, blah, blah. Almost a year later, I'm still having a blast with my HBX car, in fact I even bought two more so my kids could join in on the fun. I learned a lot about RC cars INEXPENSIVELY with the HBX cars, and eventually moved on to building a kit car, and now I've moved on to a few Traxxas Rustler I bought off eBay for cheap.

My suggestion:

1. Electric, Non-lipo
2. Off-road or buggy

Since you said your budget is around $200 - $450, I'd go with a Traxxas Rustler XL-5. I have one of the older Traxxas models and it's durable and upgrade parts are easy to get from your LHS. You can get one for around $200 and then spend money on a GOOD charger and GOOD batteries. I wouldn't recommend going with lipos at first because you have to be a little more careful with them. Nimh are practically foolproof and no real hassle to maintain.

If you really want to go cheap, and insist on a 4wd car, I'd go with a HBX Bonzer. Again, you can get one real cheap (around $150 or less) and again, get a good set of batteries and a good charger. The bad thing about the Bonzer is that although they are based on a Tamiya TL-01, the parts are harder to find at LHS, but no problem finding them online.

Some people are going to say go nitro. As a starter, I wouldn't recommend it. With electrics, it's basically charge and go, and you can use them in areas where nitro cars would be considered a nuisance. When I'm fixing my electrics (mainly at night when I have the time) it's no problem to test them in my driveway without bothering the neighbors. If you decide you want to stick with the hobby, there are brushless electric models that are as fast a nitros.