It really depends upon what you are using the interface for. If you plan on doing "band" recordings at home, including drums, you'll need a higher input count. These usually come in even increments up to 8, and then jump to 16. You'll pay more for more, of course, from the same manufacturer. If you only record stereo or mono tracks, 2 ins/outs will work. Note, it is nice to have a digital in/out if you go for a low track count in case you need or decide to expand your set up later. You can add a separate ADDA cheaper than a new interface. ADAT connections gives 8 or 4 in/outs, while Spdif or AES are stereo.
If you need to do multiple tracks at once, band recording, Focusrite seems to be the flavor of the month. Lots of people here use them. Good quality, good price for performance. Roland interfaces were popular when Cake was w/ Roland and even rebranded some of their hardware as Cakewalk. Presonus is another good brand in the low end. The converters are all good - the preamps good too. At the low end, there is not going to be a lot of difference in sound between one $200 unit and another brand (the same actually goes for the more expensive stuff, too). What is important is the drivers. On the PC, wildly different components are used and it is impossible to account for your specific computer. One interface might work fine on 99 computers, but that doesn't do you any good if you are the one it doesn't work w/. Work w/ a respectable seller, so you can take back your X model and exchange it for Y. Unless you like spending your time w/ your new interface tweaking the computer.
Multiple in/out units of quality are a bit harder to find. I've used a TC Konnekt 48 for years. Great sound, plenty of in/outs, DSP (including great reverb). It is FW, and tho the drivers used to suck, they have got them to work well. Not great, but well. In fact, they just released their latest candidate last month, so it ain't an orphan. Their newer Twin model is a 4X4, which is a nice compromise and has ADAT. TC is a step up in sound, right up there w/ RME. There reputation suffered because of faulty drivers, but I got my unit at less than 1/2 price because of that.
Up a level in price (and quality) are RME, Lynx and a lot of boutique manufacturers. RME hardware is good, and their drivers are superb. Lynx has sold as many CDs as anyone but Apogee. There are also a number of "premium" stereo interfaces coming out. These use better internal components for the hardware and preamps. The Focusrite Forte is one of these and I know there are a few users here, same for the Babyface. Crimson has a unit and I tried the new Tascam UH-7000. The latter has excellent conversion and stellar preamps. The drivers are a bit slow on my computer, which I haven't tweaked for USB, but about 11 ms roundtrip (and like every interface I know) has a(n almost) 0 latency mixer. The only other bummer w/ the unit is no inserts, so you can't put a comp or EQ before conversion. But the sound is great. I took it to one of the major studios in Dallas and the owner was blown away by the preamps at the price. And we didn't know it at the time (I looked at the schematics when I got home) but the preamps were passing through the converters. You can get a non-compromised sound for $600 or so. I prefer transformer based preamps (and in everything else!), but I wouldn't think twice about Tascams. I'm sure the same is true for the Forté etc.
For under $1000 there are plenty of great options for most situations.