I played him a few times.. my first time (random) was pretty good.. the other times I sucked

..
but it seems to me that he is not as item dependent as he is lvl dependent. The first time I had a solo lane against two harrasing opponents... couldnt farm much (yes, the spray needles do help.. but its not always enough)..had to buy a lot of obs and sentries.. but I remember being still usefull in team fights (I guess) due to the advanced lvl and ok items.. at the end my stats were like 1-4-24 or so (for me this is awesome) ..in a very hard game. Thus in non easy mode games I can imagine a hand of midas would do its work fine .. maybe as a first item (unless you need stats because the opponents' picks promise to be harrasing)
on the other hand..when the start went bad.. then he is going to have a really hard time catching up. Its not like he has an awesome stun (nor does he have other spells that could be game changing for that matter) that he can make up for his backward in lvl.