I just got my iPad on Thursday and I must say the battery life amazes me. I've been using it all day ridiculous amounts with full brightness and it's still at 33%. That's with gaming and everything.
If you lower the brightness settings I bet you'll get even better battery life. I personally just use the auto brightness and still get 10+ hours on my iPad gen1.
Mine lasts literally days. The first few days I had it, it would be done by the end of the day (obvious new toy tinkering). But I've had it go through a full work week with light use and 2 to 3 days with heavier use.