Space PewPew
EVE Online is an enormous space-based MMO, which attracts on average over 40,000 players. There are well over 7,000 systems which you can travel in to run mission, mine rocks and blast ships into tiny pieces of space dust. With no real story line, EVE Online can be what you want it to be. There is tons of player made lore, all of which can be found all over the various EVE Reddit pages.
The most important thing I will say if you want to get into EVE is get straight in with a player corporation. Of all the people that start the game, around 80% don't talk or contact any other players and quit within the first week. To keep motivated in EVE, you will need to find a strong group of space buddies to fly with. Without this, the game really is no fun. EVE also has huge learning curve, so it is extremely important to find other players that are willing to teach you how to play. There are several out there who were designed for just that. I would suggest reading up about EVE-UNI, they are a great corp who teach all aspects of EVE. Whist it may seem daunting at first, I would highly recommend sticking with it, because one you get over the hill, it is such a fun game.
You also need to be aware that you are never 'safe' when you are un-docked in space. There are various levels of security, ranging from 1.0 to -1.0. When in the higher systems, if you attack another pilot without reason, CONCORD police (NPC police ships) will arrive in seconds and blow up the attacking ship. The response time falls the closer you get to 0.5, until you get to 0.4 where there is no police presence.
I personally avoided doing mining and PvE stuff, as I felt it looked way too boring, and jumped straight into the PVP side of the game. This is a decision I do not regret. Although it was hard going to begin with, it is now great fun. The reason it is difficult to start with, is that your skills are all time based. This means you will often have a disadvantage 1v1 against an older pilot. This is another reason why you will want to find other pilots to fly with, as there is strength in numbers.
Talking of numbers, when you get involved in a huge fleet fight for the first time, it is extremely overwhelming, but really awesome to say that you were involved in it. Also being involved in so many kills really makes your kill board look very nice.
Nothing matches the thrill of PvP fights in EVE. When you get involved in your first PvP, your heart will race, and your palms will go sweaty. Once you can rise above this, PvP will become much easier and you will find you start to mount up kills.
The game has also become free to play with the introduction of Alpha Clones. Whist it is completely free to play as an Alpha Clone, a lot of the content is restricted. It does give you an excellent taster as to if you want to purchase a subscription. It is entirely possible to stay on an Alpha account and still get great enjoyment from the game.
Another great thing about this game is that it is acceptable to scam and trick other players in game. Pretty much all MMO games that I have played it is against the rules to scam other players, but there are some great stories of pirates who have tricked people into given them Million of ISK (In game currency). The biggest recorded scam was worth over 1 Billion ISK!
Another thing I hugely like about this game is it has a more mature audience, with most players that I have come across being over the 25 years mark. This has been great because I you don't have to deal with the 12 year olds telling you how they tea bagged your mother.
So whether you want to make loads of money, become the worlds most feared space pirate, or just sit an mine space rocks, there is always something for you do do in EVE. I would highly recommend giving it a try now that it is free to play.