A review for 2013, not 2003.
Since EVE's launch in 2003, I have attempted to play it twice but never made it past more than a month. EVE always felt like and seemed to be the game I always wanted to play but the experience fell short for me somehow and I gave up each time. It seemed too open, unstructured and the gameplay too dry to me.
With the recent news of 500k subscribers and subscriptions going up after 10 years of being in business, I decided to give EVE another chance. The game has changed a lot since I last played about five years ago. The introduction and tutorials are vastly improved and helped me understand the complexity and depth that this game truly holds for the veteran player.
EVE is the game you always wished would be created. It boldly goes where no other game company's would dare to go because it is so difficult to do what EVE has done well. EVE is an entierly player driven experience- the economy is too incredible, complex and awesome to be described in words but I will try anyways. The economy is the base for other branches of gameplay to sprout from. Money drives the world of EVE and motivates exploration, mining, trading, manufacturing, business and industry to name a few. Money, system control, trade routes, assets, players and the politics involved in those inevitably lead to pirates, bounty hunters, combat, massive player corporation wars and cooperative play in the struggle rise above the rest.
This is probably the most complicated and difficult to learn game I have ever played. That being said, if you are not a casual gamer, who is looking for an experience that NO OTHER GAME CAN OFFER, then I recommend you give EVE a try under it's 14 day trial. Complete ALL of the tutorials, choose your career path (an extremely difficult decision) and join a corporation (guild) that focuses on your style of play. Enter a galaxy where you play with all 500k subscribers on one server.
If you are a casual gamer, I really don't think you will like this game. It is a time sucking, addictive and complicated experience.
My experience:
You will start the game in a basic tutorial. After the basic tutorial you will start a series of career tutorials. These tutorials are designed to give you a basic understanding of how the games careers work. These tutorials are long and daunting ( It took me an entire day to complete all five career tutorials). You will likely need to ask other players questions to fully understand how things work, even after completing the tutorials.
After the tutorials, you will be presented with what players consider to be "The Cliff." The cliff is the point in the time when the game does not tell you what to do anymore and will set you free upon the galaxy. You will decide for yourself how you want to make a living, pursue your objectives and make a name for yourself. This is intimidating at first because you still are trying to understand the game. Make a decision on what you're interested in. For me it was exploration.
I joined an exploration corporation. The players in this exploration helped to educate me on the career of exploration. We began exploring unique areas of dangerous sections of space. Although we risked being attacked by real player pirates, or other unfriendly corporations. We were able to locate rare materials which were sold for millions on the open market. The money I made from participating has gone to fuel skill training, ship purchases, ship upgrades and personal stat augmentations.
Hope this helped give you some perspective. Every career choice will give you a different experience!