If you're goal is to have fun and meet a challenge, mining could be great. If your goal is to make any kind of a profit however....

And even IF you believe the price is going to rise (and let's face it, all of us do, why else would we be here?) I don't suggest mining.

Logistically it's way more complicated than it seems at first, and even if you're a top 10th percentile computer geek the cost/reward ratio just can't keep up. I looked at investing in a mining company for $45 and it seemed like at about 6 months I'd get my money back, but the returns drop sharply the second month forward.

So I too, would suggest investing directly. I've only been seriously looking into this for about a week and I can already say even just 'buying, holding, & selling' BTC is plenty time consuming and frustrating.

Good luck whatever decision you make.