My only beef is the vertical dropouts and price.

Honestly, a LOT of folks spend WAY MORE on a 1x1, and then spend hundreds more to put a bigger chainring on it and convert it to commuter mode... this Mongoose skips a couple steps and cheapens it up a little, plus it's basically a 29'er so the wheels are bigger too. Disc brakes aren't really necessary, but those are probably crappy ones anyways.

$500 for a low-end AL bike is a bit much though. I'd just get a Monocog 29'er and have the shop swap out the tires for some slicks and put on a bigger ring. At least then the brakes are pretty simple and reliable, and you have horizontal dropouts so you can actually tension the chain.