Hi everyone!
First of all, I'm new to the hunter class as a whole and have just gotten to level 55 with my SV hunter. So I can't professionally comment on its PVP or PVE capabilites - besides, the numbers will change anyway. What I want to do is to talk about the survival spec as a whole.
It's amazing! I'm having so much fun with it! I don't think I've ever had so much fun leveling any other character than a survival hunter. The spec theme is great - I'm thinking less about a traditional hunter and more about somebody like Bronn from GoT: a mercenary jack of all trades, a melee expert who also is proficient with the bow and a has few dirty tricks like bombs and traps up his sleeve. I think the spec conveys it extremely well. Harpooing into an enemy alongside with your pet charge AND throwing a freakin' wildfire bomb right into their face is just glorious!
The animations are also very cool. Harpooning and the bomb look great, and butchery has to be one of the bloodiest and greatest looking abilities in the game, I just love it!
Another thing that I've noticed is that it's the first class where distance is a play factor. Usually, you either want a) get as close as possible to the enemy or b) stay as far away as possible from the enemy. Survival forgoes that where distance is your choice, and the battle goes on your term. You can go toe to toe - or you can fight from afar and both options work. I think it's excellent and really brings a lot of flavour to being a melee-ranged hybrid.
Finally, I think it has a decent skill cap. With keeping up your poison dot, engaging/harpoon reengaging, managing focus, traps etc it has a great toolkit and a few fun "oh shit!" buttons that most other classes have been stripped off.
On the other hand, I think there is definitely a lot of potential for improvement. The interaction with the pet is kinda lackluster outside of Kill Command and Bloodseeker. Also the weapon choice is kinda ridiculous, I would expect something more fast paced with dual-wielding swords or axes rather than the slow-hitting polearms.
Overall I think it's a very exciting spec and brings a lot more flavor to the hunter class, and so far I've been enjoying it a lot!