Got mine for over a year now, and still play it almost daily. And if it wasn't for my social responsibilities, I'd be playing much more on it (can't really ignore my daughter, for one thing
). It absolutely raises the bar in quality in portable gaming. The different OS is hardly an issue except if you're determined on a few specific (anti cheatcode reliant) games. I've yet to encounter a game that wouldn't simply run.
Granted: it's an investment. And just because you CAN play every game on the go doesn't mean it's a good idea for all of them. The non-verified games at this stage are almost purely about text/UI elements being hard to read or the mouse equivalent not being up to snuff(1).
My gaming PC...it's not exactly a new setup anymore, but even so I used it often...until this thing arrived. Now I'm just using it for work, mails and redeeming my steam keys.
So...if you've got any sizeable steam library, you can breeze through whatever you want. Same goes for GoG and epic games store (I can only attest that "it works"...not too extensively tested, though). Emulation is a fucking DREAM. Emudeck is the answer to everything except where to find the illegally obtainable stuff. Optimal builds? Key bindings? Overall structure? It's so easy I feel like my hours slowly modding my (second) wii during the pandemic felt like a wasted effort.
Getting any shady executable working is (to my knowledge) still a bit of a hassle. Doable, but could use some tweaks (note: there might already be some...like deckyloader's plugin to quickly assign matching icons). And you only need to do it once per game.
The steam deck's...versatile. In theory, you could plug it into the television, pair an external controller and have a blast with it(2).
Same goes for computing: plug it into a USB-C powered docking station and you can use it as if it was a PC. Including mouse and keyboard(3). Yes, it runs linux. But by now it's merely "different" from windows, not worse. There's a reason I've used it as main OS for years (while my job just has me faffing about with windows versions).
(1): mind you: those trackpads blow any laptop's pads out of the water. But even so: it's not a mouse, so boomer FPS'es or RTS'es isn't an optimal experience.
(2) I can confirm this works, but with my girlfriend hogging the television that was more a proof of concept for me. Oh, and you'll need a seperate (cheap) USB-C -> hdmi converter for this
(3): I'm currently having a problem getting external monitors to work on anything but valve's steam deck dock, and I have no idea what's causing it. :-\