Keep in mind, the area you're looking in is like an hour drive to get to NYC, an hour to the beach/shore towns and hour and 1/2 to Philly. 2 hours to Atlantic City. Just to give you an idea of driving distance around the state.

You pretty much have an unlimited amount of entertainment option within an hour or two. It's amazing if you like concerts you have your choice of a few different cities when bands come around.

You could look at New Brunswick or Morristown for more of a city feel I guess but nothing will feel like a real city until you get to Jersey City/Hoboken area, or eventually into NYC.

Edit: if you can get somewhere walkable to a train station you can usually get into the city in a very easy 30-45 mins. Trains run pretty often and are reliable for the most part. The only thing that sucks is the last train out of NYC coming home is at 1:50am. So if you're trying to have a late night you have to work around that.