Jayson,
I own both a Virus KC and a NL2. Hands down the KC is my favorite of these two; the Virus is my favorite synth of all frankly. The NL2 does some pretty neat stuff though. I love cruncy, nasty basses on my NL2, I also like some of the pads/ambient tones it can crank out. I think the fact that the NL2 has no FX onboard is overall limiting, but once you accept it as a separate and distinct synth from te Virus, it is still very cool in its own right. Tweaking on the NL2 is different than on a Virus, the workflow is different, the filters are WAY different, but its still a cool experience, IMHO.
If you want to tinker with a NL2 but don't want to risk the purchase of a hardware board/rack, then you NEED to check out discoDSP (Discovery), which is a VST synth whose interface looks suspiciously like a NL2's and that coincidently enough can load (and comes with) all of the NL2, 2x, and NL2 ROM card banks ready for your review, YES even the demo available on the website:
http://www.discodsp.com/discovery/
The demo will emit a hissing sound every minute or so but is notlimited by time to my knowledge. I've had it on my system for many moons now! I've thought of hocking my NL2 and using the $$$ to buy a Novation Remote 37 SL and Discovery, as I would still have the same synth (essentially) as well as an automap ecapable MIDI controller (WAY Cool!). I can't bring myselfv to sell the red lady yet though, we'll see what happens in the next few months.
-Alex