My first simulator experience was in a genuine Link trainer (WW2 vintage) while working on my IR in 1969. Blue box, hissing and puffing with a 'spider' marking the track with a pen and the instructor manually adjusting the radionav signals. In the personal computer era (late 1980'ies) I went from Microsoft FS (DOS version) to the British program that used to be advertised in Pilot (don't remember the name but is was DOS and was flown using the keyboard only). I used it to keep my tracking skills sharp. I started using X-Plane about 6-7 years ago because it is and remains the only program available for Win, Linux and Mac. In my opinion X-Plane has a very competent flight model, less eye candy and can be highly customized. You need a fairly modern computer to run it. A friend of mine (ex-pilot) runs it on a three-projector setup with hardware cockpit with hardware GNS-430 etc.
if you are a pilot already, PC sims are very valuable tools to keep your skills (navigation, instrument scans, partial panel etc. Learning to fly from scratch using only a pc-sim is not such a good idea, but supporting what your learned from an instructor is helpful.