There are plenty of things to do, such as bounty hunting missions (player or ai), cargo hauling, medic, mining, transport, exploration. You can make money doing most of these, either through missions, or by buying/selling commodities, among other things. There are certain ships that are better for some things than others. It's a completely open world(universe). You can hop in your ship and fly down to a planet, get out anywhere you want, walk around, steal another ship, etc.

Pvp is definitely available, and you'll need to be clever to avoid it if it's not your thing. Major POIs like cities will have an armistice zone where you are not allowed to PVP, and space stations will have defense systems built in for anyone getting rowdy. But there are plenty of other areas that are great for PVP without such barriers as well.

The greatest thing about Star Citizen is the community. If you hop into an instance and start asking questions, people will help you, show you around, pick you up in their ship if you are stranded, maybe invite you to their player org. As far as the game itself, It really is an experience like no other. Yes there are plenty of bugs, but it has come a long way over the years