Hardi board vs Vinyl?

We live in a 2497 sq ft 2 story home - we have brick around the whole 1st floor and up the front of the house. So we are needing to replace all of the wood above the garage, the other 3 sides of the house, the fireplace and the eaves. What kind of cost are we looking at? I would probably say it is no more than 1200 sq foot of siding. We live in Texas and were originally thinking we would do vinyl, but I have read a lot of bad things about that. Any help you guys can give me would be great!