I bought a 270X about a month ago and have unrealized gains that equal what it and the power supply cost, but that was because I was able to solo mine an obscure altcoin before it was listed on an exchange. My returns in doge and the others has been mediocre in comparison. My investment in time has put it so far below minimum wage to be completely laughable.

There are people here who will tell you that it'll be profitable, but a lot hinges on when custom dedicated Scrypt mining hardware comes on the market. If it's late this year (which is the longest it will possibly be), then you might get a return on investment. If it's next month, then not so much. Of course if you keep the mined coins in whatever altcoin or Bitcoin then you're also betting that the altcoin/Bitcoin price doesn't crash again.

If you buy one card and put it in your computer and are happy to use it for gaming once it's useless for mining, then that's not too bad of an investment. Thinking about it now, I've not run a game on my computer since I put this card in, I bet Half Life would actually run at decent quality now...