Partially, but not necessarily true at all. You probably have to be a fan of RTS games in general. It's incredibly challenging, there's a million different things to learn about it, you can always improve. There's always a part of your game you're struggling with. But there's an incredible amount of room to try different builds, different units, different strategies. I played the original a decent amount and I'm just now getting into SC2 so I have a ton of basic stuff to learn before I jump in. But you don't have to be a hardcore 1v1 ladder player, you can grab a buddy and play drunk 2v2s or do whatever your heart desires.
The competitive community is fun to follow just because, like, how the hell is anyone that good at anything. But also fun to follow for pure entertainment. Check out some Day[9] Daily videos - pretty hilarious stuff.
I have yet to really get into online play; I'm finishing the campaigns first and playing a few AI practice games. I suck pretty hard right now.