I bought this laptop a couple of months ago when the cooling fan in my old Toshiba died. I was looking for something that would work for school (I'm a grad student) as well as some gaming. I chose this model due to the price. The laptop has great specs, including the i3 processor, a great GPU, and a large HD. There wasn't really anything else in the same price range that matched what the Acer had to offer. And for the most part, it does ok. can play most new games in med- high detail settings with a reasonable, but not good, frame rate. It runs very hot during gaming(to be expected), so you will need a cooling deck.
The real issue is the build quality. The screen is poor; lots of glare, screen-door effect (as another reviewer already mentioned). Sometimes on battery, the screen will randomly dim and then return to normal. The case is flimsy. When closed, the back of the lid has a lot of "give," enough to make me nervous about possible damage to the screen. The keyboard doesn't respond well, and the surface below the keys sags when typing.
I've only owned this for about two months now, and I've already seen a noticeable decrease in battery life.
Overall, the specs are great, but I couldn't recommend that anyone actually buy this. Perhaps if you plan to leave it plugged in and use an external monitor and keyboard, but that would be a little silly.