Hamsters aren't a lot of work, but they're not very sociable. I pet-sat a Syrian and all it wanted to do during the day was sleep and during the nigh, run on her wheel. She did like to run around the living room in her ball at night too, but didn't like to be held.
Same goes for my Petunia (Russian dwarf hammie). She does not like to be held and will bite your hands if they're in her cage. It's probably my fault--I'm always waking her up to give her treats (scraps of veggies, bread, meat etc), so whenever something intrudes on her space she must think it's a treat. She will climb all over me, but I don't know if she likes it, and she doesn't like to be pet. She's hillarious and adorable, and very easy to take care of, but definitely not friendly.
None of the other dwarf hammies I've had were very friendly either, and they had some health issues. One got rushed to the Emergency Vet barely breathing and died there, of unknown (probably congenital) issues, and the other just died one day.
There's a lot of inbreeding in hamsters so many don't live very long--if you do get one that makes it to 6 mo, I'd say, they will live a long time because it seems they're either very hardy or very fragile, which can be really emotionally trying. It can make you feel like you're a bad pet owner even though it's not your fault. There's also not a lot that can be done for them vet-wise.
If you do get a hammie, I'd recommend an agouti-colored one (wild color) because they're more likely to have greater genetic variability in their background (pretty colors are recessive, and thus can go along with recessive bad traits like health issues) and thus have "hybrid vigor".
The GPs I've known at the shelter were all very skittish, not to mention smelly, and not very easy to litter train. They routinely peed outside of their box meaning their towel had to be changed daily.
