You are right, it is very difficult to start with, not even just the playing, but the expectation of what you expect to hear from your favourite songs is not quite so simple as you'd want to hear in reality.
I started with an acoustic, which is hard for beginniners, but once you've got the hang of that, moving to electric becomes easy and is much easier on the fingers, not having to hold down those steel strings anymore and so much more versatile and forgiving.
Then I moved to semi-acoustic (electric) and the sound is just awesome, but you don't have the same versatility for learning, as you did with the electric that you've been banging notes out on for years. I'd say anyone getting a semi-acoustic best know how to play first.
If anyone said how do you learn, it's quite simply, practise, practise, practise and more practise and remember a song is your interpretation of it, if you are trying to copy it identical then you are going to end up feeling defeated - Youtube is a great tool and example of that, no two instructers will ever tell you the exact same thing. Which is handy when you can't get on with one particular style.