The heart of this laptop is the ATI HD 5650 graphics card. Everything else is basically secondary.
The ATI HD 5650 is the entry price point for the truly capable PCI-ex laptop graphics cards (the next step up being the ATI HD 5730 or the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M) and when coupled with the i3 CPU is the best youre going to get for gaming without spending a grand, or more.
MW2 very playable at high (not ultra) expect average frame rates to rarely drop below 35.
L4D2, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 all run smoothly.
Even the still consulted Crysis benchmark passes (on medium), the bottleneck here is identified as the processor not the ATI 5650. Perhaps a core i5 would give better results, and this model is available, but I dont feel its worth the extra money for a small gain in fps.
Build quality is fine. Keyboard responsive, screen clear. Plenty of connectivity, including a very useful HDMI port. eSATA, DVD burner, N draft wireless, all the usual bells and whistles you would expect.
However all this is basically beside the point. If you are buying a Toshiba Satellite L650 in this particular configuration you are buying it for the graphics card. In that respect this is close to the perfect games machine. Good screen, doesnt get too hot in extended sessions, responsive well built keyboard but above all the ATI HD 5650.