I'm a little spoiled on my trooper since my companion wears the same armor as me, more or less (heavy, aim/end)... he usually gets all my side-grades and castoffs.
Only after finishing chapter 1 did I get a companion that wears the same type of gear as me.
I haven't had that issue with my 35 Powertech but she's a tank. I'm using my DPS companion rather than the healer and it's been working out well. However, I don't try and solo heroic missions. Regular & class missions haven't been a problem at all.
It might be a gear issue or it could be that the companion you're using sucks or just doesn't work well with the advanced class you've chosen. Or your class could be underpowered. *shrug*
Gunslinger is very DPS heavy, so since level 25ish I've been using the Wookiee companion (melee tank, heavy armor). Arguably, I haven't upgraded him a heck of a lot since I got him, so that's probably a bad thing. But as I said, from when I got him till about level 30, I had no problems at all. Now if I run into a group of 2 strongs and 2 weak mobs, he might barely make it out alive.
I wouldn't mind playing a new MMO but my current shift doesn't leave me much time to play.
How does this compare to Rift (the last MMO I played)? I loved Rift up until I hit max level and did pretty much everything there was to do, and that was like 3-4 months into the game. Is it really easy to level up like in Rift? Is it fun to play? Is PVP always on or can you play on a non-PVP server and set a PVP flag?
Is it fun?
The pace, imho, for SWTOR is a good bit slower than most MMOs because of the full voice acting (you can turn on subtitles and buzz through if you want). You spend a good 2 or 3 minutes per NPC interaction alone.
PvP servers have a PvP flag toggle, but I don't think it matters terribly much. If you go into contested zones, you're automatically flagged for PvP (on PvP servers). I've only the last two days at level 30ish encountered any opposing factions players in open world PvP, and that was only twice that I actually went into combat against them. Yesterday I saw about 3 or 4 players travelling on one world... we all just kept on our merry way without any encounter.
The bulk of PvP is mostly canned in the warzones. The three warzone maps are pretty fun, with the exception of if you're in a PUG against a premade full of level 50's. Then it gets obviously frustrating. This is set to be somewhat eliminated next patch though.
The space missions are a nice distraction from time to time. They're not mandatory. Consider them like playing a 3D version of R-Type or something, with several objectives to complete.
Crafting (if that matters) is actually fun. Crafting itself is straightforward, as well as gathering - which is similar to any other MMO in general. The wrinkle is that you can use multiple companions (which you accumulate over time) to do crafting for you. There's also "crew skill missions", which are tied to your gathering skills, which you send a companion out on to collect whatever the designated reward is. It's primarily a money sink, takes your companion out of play for a certain amount of time (though if you have more than one it's not really an issue), and primarily how you get rare materials to craft with. There's also reverse-engineering, which lets you take apart items of the type your primary crafting skill is in order to scavenge materials and
hopefully learn an upgraded recipe for that particular item (next quality tier up).
Finally, you don't have to grind gear quite so much. There are mod-able items, which lets you take mod/enhancement components and upgrade your gear as you level up. Quite handy when you find an aesthetic look you like just to be able to upgrade the rating/stats on the gear without having to grind for that next tier epic loot armor/weapon drop.
And finally, if you like Star Wars in general, there's a lot of good story telling and voice acting in the game. All in all though, it's WoW in a Star Wars universe. Don't go expecting something you haven't seen before. Just this time you get to do it with a lightsaber.