There is so much personal choice involved that having an understanding of your personality comes in play. For example, do you already shoot rifles? If so, do you have a preference in action type? You are going to shoot it and no one else. What do you prefer? Single shot, bolt action, lever, pump, or semi-automatic? Effective caliber range is quite broad for deer... 243 to 300 Win Mag or larger. There is a sizable choice of calibers.
If I know nothing about you at all and based on my experience with guns over the years, I would suggest a modest priced bolt action gun in traditional calibers such as 270, 308, 30-06, or perhaps 7mm Rem. I personally have had great success with the 270 in brush or open country. These calibers provide a good selection of factory loadings at affordable prices. For the intermediate shooter-these calibers provide great stopping power and ballistics from less than 50 yards all the way to 300 yards on deer sized game. They have the flexibility of going all the way up to elk sized game.
I would install a medium priced 2.5-7x or 3-9x scope and leave it set on the lower settings (4x or less) while hunting until you purposely want to take a longer shot and change the power manually. It is not hard to shoot a rifle pretty well out to about 100-150 yards on deer sized game even for a beginner if a little sight in time, practice, and familarity are gained with the rifle you choose. You just have to be able to hit a paper plate at that range to feel confident with deer hunting... not the 1-inch groups or less that you read about.
I'm not a big 30-30, 35 Rem, or 44 mag shooter, but they work just fine to 100 yards or slightly farther. I just prefer slightly more flexibility built into the caliber of choice. I would stay away from the SKS, ARs, AK's, Mini-30's although they have their deer hunting supporters; just not me.