My advice: pursue a PhD. If you can find the right advisor, then you will have almost complete creative freedom to pursue interesting projects while getting paid to do it.
I [luckily] haven’t experienced the scary stuff that people talk about, but a major barrier for students is that PhDs are largely unstructured and require you to take the initiative. Not everyone does well in that environment.
A PhD is about doing research.
Your PhD program is what you make of it. If you are not interested in going into full time academia, the uni will still take your money if you look like a good candidate and can get through the program. I suppose you have to worry about competing with other students if you both are trying to get the one open position with a professor... So make sure you can pay your own way and then you won't be dependent on being a wage slave for the university and all that industry-lite crap.
But really, ask yourself over and over "why do I want a PhD?" until you're sure of the answer - it is 3+ years of your life doing only that and it could be brutal due to the workload etc.
Engineering/CS programs are probably more laid back or less 'political' (i.e. those scary stories) than humanities or other STEM degrees. I have noticed some interpersonal drama in some sense just hanging around the uni these last few years, e.g. students and dealing with them, a general sense of the academic environment. But I make sure to stay out of it.