I find that it can run games decently, certainly at a playable state. Just the fans and the heat are the concern. Even on low everything it still generates quite a bit of heat. For running programs though it's fine, I don't have problems video/photo editing; I'm actually very happy with the performance on that end. The only times I've heard the fans kick in and the laptop generate some heat has been from running games, but at the same time that makes sense given how intensive games are. But I did expect a bit more from it.
Battery life goes out of the window with anything remotely intensive on this thing. The 16 - 20 hour battery life Apple claims the M2 Pro has is just a lie. Chrome alone will push my battery down to 8 hours if I'm lucky. Add on any social stuff like Telegram and it comes down to about 6. I haven't had a laptop in forever though, I've been spoiled with the luxuries of a high end desktop for most of my life.
Oh, 3% of the battery capacity is also gone within six months of owning this. So most of the time I just keep it plugged in if I can to avoid adding on cycles.