I just got into live plants myself, and I love it. I will never have another freshwater tank without live plants again.
Live plants improve the water quality for your fish, look a lot better than fake plants, provide a more natural environment for your fish, and I find it very fun to see plants grow and propagate them.
As for light, plants generally fall into different categories of "low" "moderate" and "high" lighting.
For low light plants, usually 1 watt per gallon is sufficient as long as it is within the correct light spectrum (5000K-6700K I believe). Moderate light plants like 2-3 watts per gallon, and high light like 3+.
I have a 10 gallon tank with a gravel substrate and I bought a 15 watt 6500K bulb for 20 dollars at Petco and I'm having a lot of success growing low light plants and I love the natural look of the tank. I would recommend starting nice and easy with something like that so you don't jump into the harder plants right away and get discouraged if something goes wrong.
I am learning a lot about plants from the ones I am keeping now, so it has been a good learning experience so far and it'll help a ton for when I move to a higher tech tank down the road.