Difficult isn't the word to use, because if you can make tea and use a stopwatch at the same time, you can make beer. It's far more time consuming than difficult. An average night of brewing for me is about 6 or 7 hours, but that also includes bottling that previous batch that is ready for bottling. Your first time should take about 4 or 5 hours, mainly because sanitation is so important. These are rough estimates based on brewing styles. Some use extract, some use a partial mash technique, and the hardcore use an all-grain technique. I myself do a partial mash in a 5 gallon batch, and an all grain batch in 3 gallons.
To get started it's about 100-150 dollars worth of equipment and 50 dollars worth of materials. Any subsequent times you brew, it's about 40-60 dollars for about 50 beers. When you learn all grain, it can be much cheaper...as low as about 20 dollars.