I think it's totally worth it as long as you don't expect heavy duty games to run unreasonably smoothly:

• the performance is great for its form factor.
• the device is not locked down at all. SteamOS itself it a full featured desktop distribution. The default interface (called game mode) is designed to be accessible to controller users. But you can boot into desktop mode if you want which is a complete KDE plasma interface.
• sleep mode is very convenient. Since developers are too cool to implement pausing, being able to put the device in sleep mode is very comvenient. When the device resumes the game resumes as well.
• since it is not locked down prospects of piracy are great. It just takes some time to get used to lutris and understand the process. Knowing how wine and wine prefixes work is helpful.