Hey man! Glad you’re picking the game up. I guess it depends on what types of characters you enjoy.
If you’re looking for good entry characters, Jago and Sabrewulf fit the bill. Jago is your mostly standard shoto character, but if you want some crazy fun twists, Shadow Jago has a ton of different stuff and plays rather differently than Jago. Shadow Jago is harder to use and does less damage, but he’s a fun show-off character (to me, anyways).
Other more showy characters, and again this is more just my opinion, are Cinder, Kan Ra and ARIA.
As a Sadira main, I’d say she’s very fun, and while her move list is slightly limited versus the three I mentioned above, she still has a fun overall kit, especially if you like juggling. It just takes a good amount of practice and some really quick reflexes to get the timing down on her juggles. Some feel rather easy, and some are definitely not.
Kan Ra, to me, is like a more fun, Killer Instinct answer to MK11’s Geras (I know, Kan Ra came out years before). Both use a lot of sand in their movesets, but while Kan Ra has a nice distance command throw, he also has several other uses for sand and he’s a pretty fun character to use to control space.
Cinder, to me, has some of the most stylish looking combos in the game. Just check out some high level play of him on Youtube if you haven’t already and prepare to be amazed. It’s also fun to burn people’s arms or legs and watch the potential damage drain, or put the sticky orbs on opponents and explode them when they least expect it. He’s heavy combo, light damage, but overall a fun one to use.
One other character I might mention that to me feels as though she might kinda be in the Mileena mold is Mira. Not sure how much you know about her but she’s a glass cannon character that can do a ton of damage at the expense of her own potential damage. She has some cool moves, such as an air gliding dash, mist, a cannon drill and a silver blood scythe. She has a similar attitude to Mileena, has some cool outfits (love her Jack of Blades from Fable mask look) and she’s just all around fun.
Hope that helps! Honestly, there aren’t many characters you can go wrong with. Some are harder than others. Cinder, ARIA, Shadow Jago and Kan Ra are amongst the hardest to use at a high level, but at low and mid-levels they have some fun stuff. Honestly all of them have fun stuff. I love how TJ’s combos look, Maya has some awesome juggles, Fulgore has some fun mixups and yeah, nothing beats repeatedly stomping on the opponents head as Sadira lol.
But yeah, Jago, Sabrewulf, Orchid and Tusk all feel like fun starter characters to me. Ah, I forgot to mention Gargos and Eyedol! They’re also harder to use, but also have some really fun stuff that they can do. Mind you, when I say hard stuff for any of these, none of them have difficult moves to perform, it’s more just timing, strategy, and making the best of what you have.
My one biggest suggestion would be to go watch high level play for the characters and see what interests you. If you see Gargos putting out minions and doing his psycho crusher and beating the crap out of the opponent from across the stage and that looks fun to you, then give him a shot. I think Maya’s really hard to train with, but people obviously do that. Otherwise, good luck! Hope you find a character you enjoy.