I defended this game a LOT when it first released. If there's a way to go through my forum post history, you can and see for yourself. I felt it had potential, and still do in many ways, but as it is, after being available for a fair while now, no, I don't feel like it's worth it anymore, especially if the development team continue to pander to the lowest common denominator of casual gamers. I say that, however, in reference to what I consider spending my money on, and OP, in all fairness, what you and I, or what you and anyone else on here considers 'worth it' could well be too different to bank on. I would suggest it's not worth it to you because you haven't tried it yet, and that's a huge problem with games today. Ten to fifteen years ago, you could buy a floppy disc from your local post office for five bucks with a full game on it, but it had a time limit, and you could experience a lot of the game in that time unrestricted, but when the timer ran out, the software would lock, delete any saved material you had from the game, and ask you to purchase it fair and square if you wanted to keep playing.
People don't do demos so much any more. I've played EVE for over three years now and have become somewhat well known to various in-game circles as Remiel Pollard, and I can say hands down that even the free trial for EVE is not really enough to cover the scope of what you're getting yourself into. Although, I'm not sure any demo could ever be enough for EVE. On that note, EVE and Elite are only comparable insomuch as they are space games. Some salty people will say "ELITE IS BETTER!" without hesitation but only because they never fully grasped the true player-driven nature of EVE, where every choice you make has the potential to have consequences for someone else. Because nothing there is instanced, nothing at all, and every mission you warp to can be warped to by someone else. Every NPC you shoot at can be shot by someone else, and even if you legally get the kill, they can still steal your loot from it. Every aspect of that game is 'every man for himself' and the very nature of EVE is bound to make someone very salty. It's not a game for everyone, you really do need to be quite secure with yourself emotionally to play it.
Whereas here, you're largely cocooned from that by instancing and other game mechanics. This game caters to a much more casual crowd by virtue of that, and there's nothing wrong with that but I, personally, prefer games that confer some meaning to choices and consequences, which this game seems to lack in spades. At the end of the day though, my personal opinion of worth stands - don't pay for it til you've tried it, it's never worth the permanent loss of your own hard earned cash if it turns out too late that you don't like it.