to answer one of my own questions: I just found out VS2012 Express is good to go 
“The UnrealVS extension does not work with the Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. It is only compatible with Visual Studio 2012 Professional.”
did you try the UnrealVS extension?
no I didn’t try UnrealVS. is it crucial that I do?
with this extension will we still need a third party plugin still (like pixelmine was for ue3 with VS) to program or can we stick to using the C++ handling of OOP for the tree structure within a VS setup?
not sure if my 2 cents is worth much here, but i’ve been using VS2012 express since the first beta, though i can’t code to save my life it does work
So I can use the free, $0 Express edition of Visual Studio 2012? That would be great as I have burned a hole in my wallet to get a new computer with the right specs for this Beta. The parts should be coming in early next week and I can get started.
When I signed up, I thought I had the right specs but it turns out upon further research (I’ve been out of the computer hardware loop for ages) that I was not within spec - so I’m building some credit and getting a nice gaming rig - just a little delay.
Anyway, anywhere I can save $$$ is great, so VS2012 Express is okay?
@Aaron: according to Oscar and George VS2012 Express is good to go.
@Emile: the extension doesn’t do that, you might want to check out this
@Oscar: it’s not crucial, i was just wondering if the information was correct. As you can see in the link it’s only useful for:
Setting the Startup Project
Bindable command for building the Startup Project
Setting the command line arguments
(which aren’t really important to me at the moment)
I would say that if you can write code, making a C++ project is the way to go. Blueprints in UE4 are way more powerful that Kismet in UE3, but C++ does give you power, speed and API access that is difficult or impossible in Blueprints. You can still use Blueprints where it makes sense, but having C++ gives you options We think it will be possible to make games using only Blueprints, but our recommendation would be to use a combination of C++ and Blueprints.
I hope that helps!