I would recommend CI3. I have used it for over 12 months in various projects large and small and have not found any real issues. I continue to pull down the latest dev version ever few weeks and it only gets better.
That said, I am not sure what the LTS is going to be on CI2 but I can't see any reason to start a new project on v2 at this time as v3 will be the "current" version very soon (maybe even before your project is production ready?)
