The most important thing is to find a group. For one, you can split the investment around, because you pretty much need the core books to play.
Pathfinder is D&D 3.5 with some customization options layered on top. It fixes a lot of the problems people had with 3.5, and overall is a good way to play the game. It is, however, more complicated than 4th and 5th edition. There's a lot of rules, a lot of different stats and I think an inexperienced DM will spend most of the first session reading the rules.
4th edition is a combat/miniature focused game. There are opportunity for role playing there, but fighting dudes will take up most of your time. Even encounters that seem simple, can take an hour to resolve. It also has the problem that all the classes follow the same template. As a consequence, none of them feel unique. If you want to focus on the fighting, then 4th edition is a pretty good miniatures combat game, but I don't think it's as good a role playing game.
5th edition is probably your best starting point if you have little experience. 5th edition is made to be easy to get into, and very open to player's changing or adding to the core rules. As a result, the core rules are very simple and easy to follow. There aren't a hundred different bonuses to keep track of. It doesn't quite have the complexity in combat that more experienced players are used to from Pathfinder or 4th edition, in terms of rules, not necessarily what your character can do. If you're completely new to D&D, 5th edition is probably your best bet.
Final tip to the prospective Dungeon Masters. Don't tell your players what to do. Sure, you can give them hints on where to go, tell them about a bounty posted on Goblins by the duke, or have a sleazy pirate sell them a treasure map, or have them stumble on an open door in town and find a murder victim, but it's really up to the players if they want to participate. You can have a hundred things planned for them to do in a city, and as they approach they may decide to go hunting for treasure in the woods instead. Be flexible and improvise.
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