There are many advantages to ETFs but they aren't suited to every investor, especially not if you're a dollar-cost averager. Dollar-cost averagers contribute small amounts of money on a regular basis, and this can be disastrous if you're buying ETFs because every buy and sell order creates a transaction fee. For example, if you contribute $100 per month to a particular ETF and each transaction costs $10, you are instantly losing 10% of your investment every month. Index Funds are a great alternative for dollar-cost averagers. Like ETFs, they track broad indexes but don't charge transaction fees when you contribute more money (more on Index Funds below).
Many ETFs don't do as well as the index that they track so be sure to chart and compare your ETFs to their peers and to their index before you buy (I'll explain how to easily do this below). The most common reason for performance lag is expenses, you can't expect your ETF to track the S&P 500 accurately if it has a 2% expense ratio. There can also be other factors such as poor management or inaccurate rebalancing, but the bottom line is avoid ETFs that don't accurately track their index.
Like stocks, ETFs are very easy to trade. They don't require any minimum investment, they can be traded any time that the market is open, and you can buy and sell as frequently as you like. This makes it tempting to try to time the market or chase returns, and also creates a lot of transaction fees that eat into your profits. ETFs are designed for buy-and-hold investors, they can be very expensive if you trade frequently.
There is a much wider range of ETFs available today, and many are very specialized. Specialization often means an ETF is tracking a much smaller basket of stocks so they tend to be more risky and volatile. If you invest primarily in these sector and specialty ETFs, you're giving up your greatest advantage as an ETF investor, diversification. Stick with the broader indexes, don't give up diversity to try to squeak out an extra 1 or 2% gain, chasing returns backfires every time.
One of the capital gains burdens that you're going to have to deal with on a regular basis as an ETF investor is dividends. They are taxable, and they are unavoidable if you're trading stocks and funds. Fortunately dividends do provide a benefit that offsets the tax liability that they create. Even though you'll have to pay taxes when a company passes you part of their profits in the form of dividends, they are also boosting your returns.
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