I had a 2013 GLI for about 18 months...super fun car that I loved to drive, but my experience echos the sentiments that they are high maintenance. In that 18 months I spent over
$3k on repairs, which seemed excessive for a car that only had 60k miles. The final straw for me was when I had to replace the intake manifold because the plastic arm that controlled the runners broke.
Word of warning, do a little research on their transmissions if you drive a lot of miles. The DSG is a sweet transmission but requires a fluid change every 75k (I think) miles that costs over $1k. My car had a manual for that reason and the transmission was one of the few things I didn't have a single issue with.
Edit: I was way off. Looks like it is a 40k interval and cost closer to $500..so I guess it's about the same cost over similar life to my initial guess.
I had a negative experience, but I will say that I have friends with VW's and no issues.