I have one.
It's a good phone. Have had it for about 3 months now. Only time mine heats up is when wirelessly tether it for a while, or use the GPS in the car while streaming pandora. But never from just browsing the web for a bit or making a few phone calls.
The battery life does seem shorter than other phones, but this is a 1.2 GHz phone while the rest are 600 Mhz or 1 GHz, with the same type of battery. If he roots it, he could always underclock it to 300 Mhz when the screen is off, or get the extended battery (that I purchased as well).
Though I do recommend he wait for a newer phone that will come out soon. Does your friend liek using roms on his phone? If so, then he should probably stay away as there arent many roms for the phone compared to the Droid 1. Stock is fine too, but at this point I almost which I wouldve waited and got a better phone as I don't use the phone out of state, so the global features dont do anything for me, and I'm kind of sick of motorola phones.