The death penalty in EVE is harsh. Too harsh if your are casual probably. If you are in a good Corp (guild) they can help you replace stuff of course. You get killed in EVE, you lose the ship you are in permanently, lose everything equipped, and your wreckage looted by anyone nearby. So people definitely want to kill you if you have good stuff on your ship (or just for kicks). PVP is nonconsensual even in supposedly secure space. People will suicide attack you (in secure space attackers will get killed by the "space police") to get your stuff.
If they podkill you (for those not familiar, quick explanation: the pod = you), you can loose skill points, lose implants, set you back months. And you really have to be in a good corp to PVP so you don't spend time grinding to get your stuff replaced. Of course if you like being cannon fodder, you can get right back into PVP and that can actually be fun. Flying around in a starter ship (the only free one you can get) attacking drones is fun while they ignore you (then they one-shot you).
Imagine a death penalty in SWTOR that sent you from level 50 to 1 with all your equipment gone. That's the only way to really illustrate the harshness of EVE's death penalty compared to SWTOR's death penalty (some repair costs).
I had some fun in EVE when I had time to devote to it. I was involved in many large fleet actions and that was fun, but you must have resources (good corp) to really enjoy that aspect.
But when life just got in the way, I had to go more casual, I just couldn't have as much fun (can still do economic PVP there).
EVE is pretty hard core PVP compared to everything else. It's more like old text based MUDS:
You enter a dark room.
You are backstabbed.
You are dead.