I used to play EVE a bit, and while some complaints about the game may be justified, there are ways around the majority of the problems.
First off, Travel times and gate campers. Sure, they both suck,, the reason being that warping to a gate puts you, what? 15 km out or so? And then you fly in the rest of the way, taking your sweet time and being easy pickings.
Of course, you can also warp to way points. Markers set by you in space. And guess what, you also warp in somee 15 km away from them. ... Hmm.. So the first time you get into a system you feel you may travel in again, head passed the gate oh say.. 15 km and set a way point.
*Bamf* And the gate campers cannot stop you. Heck, make waypionts from the belts right to the bases for your miners and all over the system. Best part is, once you've laid the ground work, you can copy the waypoints and give them out to all your friends.
Secondly, PvP and the idea that you can't do much solo. Yes pvp can be annoying, and running large PvE battle with friends can be fun, but you can work solo. It just takes time and a bit of help to figure out how. (You'd be suprised how helpful and informative some of the pirates are.) Yes, it is true that sometimes your running around hunting NPC pirates and someone in a bigger, shinier ship blows you up just because they can. But you are not helpless.
I played pretty much solo the entire time I played, and when some guildie trashed my ship, I was guildless and all my friends worked in a completely different sector of space, so turned pirate on his entire guild and took it on alone. And with that entire sector waypointed for my use I could work right out of the same bases they used and could get away even if they brought in a posse.
Granted, the guy who got me, and a few of the dedicated miners were too much for me to take on alone, but I did manage to get in a few kills and harrassed the guild for long enough that the within two weeks I'd become somewhat infamous. The newbies in the sector were messaging me in hopes that I'd leave them alone and guild leader finally asked for a ceasefire and offered reperations.
Of course, after that I felt there was nothing left to do and haven't played since.
I'd say try the free trial before deciding that WoW or some other is a better MMO. I really don't care for most MMO's but EVE managed to capture my attention for almost as long as Planetside did.