My experience as well. Started running last year at age 44, started getting bad knee pain within weeks. Switched to forefoot strike, knee pain practically disappeared, ran my first marathon last fall. Different people have different constraints, of course, but I would urge anyone interested in picking up running to at least try it out.
I'm 28, relatively thin, been running casually sometimes, and also got knee pain after a few months last time I got into running more seriously. I stopped for a while, did various strengthening exercises that I found on Youtube and most importantly adapted the to front-middle strike.
For this, I also got low drop (4mm) shoes, which made adapting the strike so so much easier.
The knee pain is now gone and I feel that my leg is in better shape--strength better distributed--because of the front strike.
I once went to a sports doctor about my knee pain. As I recall, he charged me $600 for an evaluation, and prescribed orthotics. The orthotics did not have any effect, despite my wearing them for years.
