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Hey :3 I haven't played 40k in forever and although I'm still in the process of sorting out my WHFB stuff I am looking to get myself a reasonable 2000pt 40K army, just I'm not entirely sure what I want. I've had this indecisive problem with 40k ever since I first played and wound up going through several armies about 6-7 years ago.

I have narrowed down my options but I'm still not entirely sure. I don't want a large army - For those that know I use skaven in WHFB, my 2000pt army has about 300 troops in it and I would rather not have to paint that scale of an army again for a long while, so this instantly rules out IG, Orks.. I also don't want a flimsy army, both in terms of models and playing. Eldar of all varieties seem to die relatively easily to ap values and while I DO like Dark Eldar, they seem annoyingly small and troublesome to paint (while I can paint to a good level I would rather not strain myself model for model) as I'm kinda fussy about upholding standards for painting. Chaos is an automatic no, I don't like them or demons which doesn't seem to leave me much other then Necrons and Marines (sisters of battle/witch hunters I stopped due to how expensive they are).

Space marines = what chapter should I go for? Codex etc. Grey Knights look decent, so do Dark angels and emperors children.
Necrons = not a big fan, though there newer models do look rather nice.

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So basically Space marines and necrons are being considered, I do like how dark eldar's list is, but afaik it is the newest book so far.

So basically what I'm asking for really is some pro's / con's to space marines, necrons and any others that I've left out that would meet what I'm after. How do they play on the field? how are they financially and aesthetically to field an army of them in 2000pts.

The new book so far is actually Necrons and before that the Grey Knights. If you don't want to paint much Grey Knights are your best option. One of the most competitive dex out there and builds with very low count models like 15 paladins.

Really? I didnt know they had there book re-visited laetly, but yes grey knights had been the highest on my list for consideration lately, I'm just unsure given the alternate options of chapters or a more regular marine army, or even necrons.

Dark Angels would allow you to try out any cloth techniques that you developed with your Skaven, and also have some nice fluff. As I understand it, you're looking at:

Vanilla Marines: Gunline - lots of firepower from relatively static positions, weak melee. Have more options, but many are very weak. But you do get the widest character model choice in the entire GW range.
Space Wolves: character centric, lots of melee. Some daft stuff like giant wolves, but they can be fun, and you should be fairly clued up on how to paint fur by now.
Blood angels: deep strike and jump pack centric, fastest of the marine armies. Also have the very cool sanguinary guard and death company models.
Black Templars: higher model-count, melee centric. Old codex though.
Dark angels: all-terminator list, all-bikes list, plasma guns(?). Models have robes and cool symbols.

Note that I'm not very familiar with many of these codices, so I may be off the mark.

Sounds like we have another Gray Knights player here...
Necrons are also really nice, and I don't think that anyone can strain themselves painting Immortals, or warriors. The Barges and the Arks can be a bit fiddly to put together, but paint up beautifully. On the tabletop, Necrons are a tricky army and it relies on synergies between units to do what it needs to.

You say that like its a bad thing xD believe me its not for the meta game that I sway towards GK if there is one, I didn't even know there book was one of the newest xD.

Necrons appear very, drybrush and repetitive as far as painting seems to go, but looking at some of the competitive lists around I can see how that Gauss weaponry would come in nicely.

As for regular space marines, those without an up-to-date codex are kinda not going to see much from me but I'm yet to scour over all the codex's yet, I only have access to browse the basic Space marine and GK one yet so I'm relying entirely on looks and advice at the moment.

Personally looking at some of the mini's for GK I really like the models from what I've seen though I'm skeptical as to the kind of list to field. Psycannon spam seems to be popular but just seeing those models with all there melee weapons makes it feel like a waste to make them a firing line army D: specially when regular space marines can do it just as well.

I do like black templars, but they will need an updated codex before I were to venture there. Blood angels, they bring back some nostalgia I will have to pay there book? a visit.

And I still need to look into necrons, I wasn't there biggest fan by any means back when the plastics were first released (I even had an old full metals army of them) but I do see them quite often on the battlefield around where I play so I'm hesitant.

Imagine a regular marine, who's also a psyker, and a stormbolter instead of just a bolter, and whose CCW is a power/force/anti-psy weapon.

Now picture 12 of them, and you have a 2000 points GK army.

Seriously, since it was one of the last codex to be out, the stuff inside is a bit over the top. The only army that has from 4 to 55 points naked models. You can start the army with a very low model count (namely, paladins), and finish as a stupidly big horde (namely henchmen).

You have competitve choices as well as very cool looking models. Win/win.

You should always collect an army that interests you in my opinion. If you don't enjoy them, what's the point?

Vanilla Marines have whatever style you want to give them, from Romans to Mongols. They can also do all Bikes if that's your thing.
Space Wolves are Vikings. Focus on cool characters and good in melee
Blood Angels are, essentially, Vampires. That have supercharged engines and fly.
Grey Knights are Paladins. They kill Daemons and other Evil things. They can do all Terminators the best out, beating out Space Wolves and Dark Angels.
Black Templar are Crusaders. Scout armored Initiates form up the Men at Arms while the Power Armored brethren form up Knights. They tend to have the most models on the table.
Dark Angels are brooding gothic warrior monks in dresses-i mean robes. They are a bit weird, Deathwing is their Terminators and Ravenwing their Land Speeders/Bikes. I could be wrong but I think they play similar to vanilla marines if you aren't doing a 'Wing list, but have different paint jobs for some of their units.

Vanilla Marines:
- Gunline (as mentioned by Charles, fairly static)
Space Wolves:
- Hybrid (mix of infantry and armor)
Blood Angels:
- Mech (Fast vehicles and Baal Predators make them the best Space Marine army to do Mech with)
- DoA (Decent of Angels; can do a pure Jump Infantry list and not suffer too much for it thanks to FNP bubbles and the DoA special rule)
Grey Knights:
- Rock (Terminators as troops, and can take Paladins which are Terminators with FNP. You tend to have a dozen guys and can't win Objective games to save your life but you are annoyingly hard to kill)

Black Templar and Dark Angels are a bit dated and I'm not familiar with their competitive lists in 5th edition. To be frank, the last time I saw a Dark Angel army in person and actually on a game table was over a decade ago. Templars, the last time was a year ago and he had a very un-Templar list.

Of course, there is always Chaos if you wait for their updated Codex. And you can always "counts as" an army and make up your own style if there's a gameplay type you like. I'd get a few proxy games in with friends just to see what you like.

I may give Chaos a wait, but I've never been a big fan of them.

I am starting to be tempted by DE now but I'm really trying to avoid them because I know they will be a pain xD

At the same time I'm not sure about the DK lists I've come up with, feel perhaps a little too small I'm not sure, I don't like the trend that people seem to use them for the 24" kill zones.

Blood angels are somewhat tempting, i used to use them way back and infact I'm going to be taking a peak at there codex later today so I'll see what I think of them then on first glance, same with necrons.

Tau and battle suits