My DK2 arrived last night, as you'd expect with a Dev Kit there are some problems, you really have to fiddle about to get a combination of screens working that allow you to launch in and out of games without much fuss, it's frustrating but not entirely unexpected, there's loads of videos and advice from the community on how to set up a gaming environment with it that works well.
As for the experience...Wow. Here's my experience after 2 decades in PC gaming and consider myself somewhat of a pro, so for people concerned about the quality you'll hopefully find this a balanced review if you're thinking of getting one.
This is easily the most unique and impressive experience I've ever had, and I own stereoscopic 3D, multi-monitors, 125" projector screen and much more, but none are this immediately impressive.
Immersion is absolutely instant as soon as you're in the rest of the world is completely gone, coming out of the rift, the reverse experience of the rift world going away and the real one coming back is strangely bizarre. The whole experience is just borderline the kind of quality to make you believe what you're seeing in front of you is really there. The tracking and latency on the screen when you're running at the 75hz/75fps is extremely minimal you can tell the tracking really is polling at 1000hz, the latency time is just ever so slightly perceptible when specifically testing and deliberately looking for it. It's important that this is read with context - I'm a pro gamer who is used to 120fps and who thinks the lag due to vsync is completely and utterly unbearable. Even for me casual play there is essentially no latency you simply don't feel any during normal use - let me tell you this is really quite freaky it allows your mind to suspend belief that it's all fake and as you look around you it just feels natural.
The resolution and screen door is a problem, the screen door effect isn't that bad actually but the pixels are fairly large, something you don't notice when things are up close, usually you notice this when detailed objects become distant. The res is 1080x960 per eye (ish) which is near square aspect ratio, that seems odd on paper but when it's more or less filling your vision it's a different story it works well. FOV is 110 degrees diagonal so something approximating the old 90 degree HorzFOV on a 4:3 monitor we used to game with decades ago, not quite as wide as a 16:9 screen at the 106 degree HorzFOV most pro gamers are used to, it's sufficient and again borderline for a great and convincing experience.
The FOV as you experience it in the rift is nearly all your vision but not quite all of it, for me I can tell there's black outside the rendered FOV, that's OK as you tend to look straight forward when using the rift and then move your head to look around this means you're rarely aware of the black at very the edges of your vision, it just kinda fades away as you're used to it.
It's comfy and light, easy to adjust, can adjust side and top straps, swap between a couple of pairs of lenses, adjust the screen back and forth to fill your vision more or less.
I've played the Helix rollercoaster, 3 out 4 of us who tried it were motion sick after it, not to the levels of wanting to throw up but certainly woozey, using it on more gentle games/demos for me is fine. I quite like the fact that I get slightly dizzy when being thrown around because that's what really happens on a rollercoaster!
Playing TF2 coop was immediately impressive, looking down at your body and seeing the heavy weapons guy model, being able to lean around and inspect your gun, there's something really awesome about that. You're immediately like "woah...i AM the heavy weapons guy Ah-hahaha" then you eat a sandvich in first person "om nom nom nom", just brilliant, that will put a massive grin on any TF2 players face, guaranteed.
It wouldn't be a complete review without movies/porn so here goes, mods feel free to edit this out if this breaks any rules, I'm fairly sure it doesn't. There's already several movie players and 3D cinemas where you can walk around choose your cinema seat and then play your own media in the virtual cinema, both 2D and 3D movies, it's a very odd thing to mix and match both being in a 3D modeled world and then on a flat surface have a 2D movie played, then flip that movie into 3D and watch a 3D movie inside a 3D world...it's not unlike actually being at the cinema, you can walk around the cinema and pick seats that give you the kind of FOV you want the cinema screen to take up.
There's also panoramic 180+ degree movie players and movies which aren't Stereoscopic 3D (I'm not sure if that's possible?) however they're played onto a dome shape that's wrapped around you, which means you can essentially look around your environment by turning your head. There's already porn shot like this and it's well...it might just usher in a new age of porn lol. It's really odd to have a scene spread out around you and you're able to just turn your head to look at the parts that interest you the most ¬_¬
There's also support for regular stereoscopic 3D movies which are shot in SBS format (side by side), I've tested a few they look really good. In fact the 3D depth effect looks a lot better than using something like cinema 3D or even the relatively decent Nvidia Vision 2.0 (+ lightboost monitor) because there's a higher frame rate, much smoother, and it's not presented to each eye in turn it's presented to both eyes at the same time so it stops flicker and you don't have the reduced brightness. Something about this kind of 3d just makes the depth look that much more believable. Same goes for 3D rendered games as well you can really perceive the depth better. i think it's safe to say the porn industry on the rift is going to be substantial.
Anyhow, willing to take and answer questions if any gamers have them.