as someone who just got into this.....
x-wing ultimately has two different environments. The "I only buy what I like and play to have fun" and the "competitive CMG". As a newbie, anyone who tells you differently is lying.
The former is as inexpensive or expensive as you make it. The problem being that you really need to find a group that plays this way, which I wasn't able to find. But if you can find it, it's an awesome game and no, you won't have any of the wambo-combo stuff, but you'll still have plenty of fun.
The latter is fucking expensive. If you dive down that road, I hope you have an understanding husband/wife... Without spending an ass-load, you are going to have a near impossible time eeking out a win. Unfortunately this is the environment at most open nights at FLGS. Nicest community ever.. but seemingly everyone at every store has Feldherr or Plano cases stacked with multiples of every single expansion released.
If you can find the former, it's an AWESOME way of getting into the game. If you are ok with the cost of the latter, X-Wing is probably one of the (if not THE) top competitive mini games out right now. Incredibly deep and FFG does a great job of keeping the meta moving (like the recently revealed tractor beam that's out next week)
edit - for instance.. the cheapest "tier 1" list I can find is Thug Life.. and that retails for ~$150 plus the cost of the core game (which you need for the various tokens, dice, etc). Next closest would be Brobots which is still $190. Obviously these are net lists, and you can make up your own... but veering from these lists starts meaning that you need certain necessary cards for survivability. That's the thing I've noticed about this game. Getting your big offensive cards is relatively cheap.. getting your big defensive cards (autothrusters, carrier astromechs, palpatine, 3PO, etc) starts costing huge money.
