The main reason Eve Online is like work is because you have to do all your hauling, trading and fighting personally, in X, that can be automated, so that it doesn't become a grind. Secondly, Eve is third person, not first person. You can even buy a mining vessel and tell it to mine minerals in a specific sector and sell those minerals for the best price, so even the most basic grinding can be automated.
As I said earlier, the hard part in X is getting started, that does require some grinding, I'll admit, but once you have the mechanisms in place, you can relax and enjoy the universe itself to a far greater degree than something like Eve. And not liking RPG's isn't a crime either, no-one's saying you have to like the game, but, similarly, there's no point criticising someone else for liking the game.