Is this a good PC for my gaming needs?

In general it's a pretty weak gaming setup at even modest settings, the cpu is fine but the graphics card is poor or worse.

Is building your own an option?

If not maybe try this instead.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227614R

At least it comes with a gaming card and is of a similar price. It seems to be the best prebuilt on newegg for that price range even if it is an open box.

We like to advise against prebuilt machines as usually the price performance is low, the one I linked to may be open box but it's the best of the bunch under 500 by a fairly good margin. Would you consider an alienware console type machine? the would be better than what you had linked.