Will be for an 18" SPR style AR.  I'm not tied to MOA or MIL, and have never done any ranging using a reticle, have only used a duplex.  I don't plan on shooting any competitions at this time.  Pretty much a novice in this realm, but buy once cry once.  Part of me wants to go Mil-r, because that seems to be the way to go if you get really involved, and just in case why not learn it from the get go?  I plan on doing to some coyote hunting and informal plate whacking with some paper thrown in, and am good with MOAR if that is better suited.  The problem I am having is that I can't really tell much difference between the reticles aside from the MIL vs MOA.  MOAR is advertised as being fast and easy to use in the field, which sounds great, but is it better at that then MIL-R?  I want to go illuminated, if that matters.

Worried I'm going to buy one, then kick myself a year down the road for not getting the other.  Stuck with ordering whatever I get, so I can't look at them beforehand let alone try them.  Probably overthinking, but it is almost $2000...

They're both good.  I like the box in the center of the MOAR a little better, but only for very superficial reasons.  

I do too.  Seems like it would be easier to see in some Michigan woods when chasing coyotes.  Larue had the MOAR in a package deal with a mount that saved me over $100.  I liked the idea of MIL-R better, but my heart was telling me that MOAR was probably moar of what a I was looking for.  Saving a little money sealed the deal.  Ordered by phone today because I wanted to substitute mounts in the package, but they messed up my address spelling and I'm not sure if order went through.  Saw the email and started sweating instantly, but they were already closed.  

I'm cheap, most of my cars were cheaper than this scope.  This is strange territory and I'm not sure how I ended up here.

I can relate to this.  There was a time that I said I'd only spend this kind of money on something I could put gas in and drive to work.  Now I own 7 NFs.  

I reassure myself that I'll use and enjoy these scopes, as will my children, long after my daily driver is a pile of rust.  

The NXS 2.5-10x42 is only available in a second focal plane model, so that eliminates one potential decision.

A second focal plane reticle is a good option anyway as with a maximum of 10x you'll be doing any stadiametric ranging at distances that matter as 10x anyway.  And, given that the size do the reticle doesn't change you don't have to worry about the lines in the reticle getting larger at maximum magnification and obscuring small targets at long range, or getting too small to low magnification to be able to see the reticle in low light.

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I posted this as part of a broader reply in another thread - but it's the part relevant to your MOA versus Mil decision:

Mil versus MOA

It's essential that your turrets match your reticle. While some shooters have scope where they don't match, it just makes life harder than it has to be.

Mil versus MOA will start an argument pretty much every time, but generally speaking if you think in imperial units (estimating target sizes in inches and ranges in yards) then the MOA system makes more sense. If you think in metric units, (estimating target size in centimeters and ranges in meters) then the Mil system makes more sense.

There are some pros and cons - 1/4 MOA adjustments are a bit more precise than .1 Mil adjustments, but you can communicate and record Mil sight settings with 1 or 2 fewer digits - but the biggest difference is in how you think. You need to be realistic. While you can re-train your brain to use cm and meters, you need to go all the way and immerse yourself in it, or you'll never get past the problem of "metric as a second language".

Mil is popular with the tacti-cool mall ninja crowd because it's what the military uses, but the reality is that way too many shooters end up with a mil reticle and then use inch and yard units, and make the head math harder than it needs to be.

Where this matters is if you start doing stadiametric ranging using the hash marks on either an MOA or Mil reticle. Here are some examples:

If you have an MOA reticle and are estimating in inches and yards then it's pretty easy to estimate range:

Range in yards = (target size in inches / target size in MOA) x 100

if you're ranging on a target that is 30" tall and it subtends 4 MOA in the reticle, then the range is 750 yards 30/4 = 7.5 x 100 = 750. 30/4 is hard to do in your head, but 30/2 is 15 and half of 15 is 7.5. Most people can manage that.

If you have a Mil reticle and you're ranging the same target, while estimating in centimeters and meters, it's also pretty easy to estimate range:

You'd use:

Range in meters = (target size in cm/target size in Mil) x 10

And you'd get:

75 cm / 1.1 mil x 10 = 680 meters. That's the rounded head math number because with 1.1 mil I need to reduce the 75 by 10% (call it 7) to get 68 and then take that times 10.

Don't get hung up on the differences between 30 inches and 75 cm as the 1.5 cm difference is going to be lost in the noise of the actual target size anyway.

Given that a Mil is 3.44 MOA, a 10 Mil reticle with .5 mil hash marks has a total of 20 hash marks, while a 40 MOA reticle with 1 MOA hash marks has 40 hash marks. Consequently, you end up having to do a bit more extrapolation when determining how many Mils the target subtends. That's one of the potential cons of using the Mil reticle and most companies try to offset that by incorporating a separate ranging scale with a 2 Mil scale marked in .1 Mil hash marks.

However, if you're mixing systems and trying to estimate using inches and yards with a Mil reticle, you'd use:

Range in yards = (target size in inches / target size in Mil) x 27.8.

Using the same example, but using 30" and subtending 1.1 Mil you'd get:

30/1.1 = 27.27, 27.27 x 27.8 = 758 yards.

That's nice, but there is no way on God's little green earth I can do that in my head, especially under stress and time pressure.

Short version = don't mix units, and choose the system that lets you do the math in your head the easiest.

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Most American's are going to be more fluent in estimating target size and distances in inches and yards, and thus MOA is usually a more practical choice.

Both my NXS have the MOAR reticle. I just love that thing. Very natural to my brain.

assuming matching turrets, i find it much easier to dial mils.  

Hitting 1.1 mils low...11 clicks up.  
.6 mils low...6 clicks up.  
...it's just much easier math to do on the fly.

Got scope today.  I'm surprised how fine the reticle is, but I guess it's hard to tell when you are looking at a lightswitch across the bedroom because it's dark outside.

Edit:  Looked out window, and I could shoot with the lighted reticle.  I'm impressed with it.