My opinion on gear - I would go and get an epiphone les paul special II ($150, $100 used probably) for a couple reasons:
1) You could save $30 and get a special I but you would only have 1 pickup, not 2 and I think it's worth it since this isn't something you can put a little money into to fix later. I think the guitar in the Rocksmith bundle is a special I.
2) Materials and workmanship are probably going to be around the same made in Mexico stuff until you get up into $500 or $600 range but then again modern machining means these things are pretty decent/consistent anyway. Actually, I think a $600 guitar is still made in Mexico most of the time. Maybe a $1000 Gibson is made in the U.S.?
3) I picked the Les Paul body because it's a popular body for all kinds of music, and is really basic and no frills. Something like the Fender Stratocaster has a whammy bar/floating tremelo and that makes it a pain to restring, a pain to retune (stuff like drop D etc.), and is just extra stuff you have to learn about before you even really need it.
4) Les Pauls look awesome.
It's probably worth it to find a luthier/guitar tech in your area and pay $30 to get your guitar set up also, cheap guitars don't come set up well out of the factory vs. something more expensive is tweaked to play well.
If you're only in it for Rocksmith, don't bother getting an amp for $100, just use the computer. If you really want, Vox makes $30 headphone amps that work pretty well (amPlug) probably worth looking into (you have to plug headphones into it, but I think its neat, portable, and sounds better than my $100 15 watt practice amp).
That's as cheap as I would go to start off. Could probably go less but this is stuff that is decent enough to grow with you for a while - upgrade the pickups and you really aren't missing anything until you're willing to put down $600 for a new guitar IMO.