As others have said, card advantage is big in this game, but I have to agree with those commenters that it isn't as important as it is in Magic and other games where your drawing power is more limited. 

As to Heart of the Empire - I think it is worth the risk. The cards in that objective set are powerful and it is the perfect "bait him into attacking" objective to use against your lightside opponent.

Darik said:

Card advantage is big, but the "traditional" ways of gaining card advantage don't work the same.  Since pretty much every card includes "draw one card" as a delayed effect of playing it (the exception being card drawing cards), 2-for-1 trades, sweepers, etc don't produce a permanent card advantage (they may give you a temporary one until your opponent has their next draw phase).  Currently the only way to gain a true card advantage is Recon Mission increasing your reserve value, though you can gain virtual card advantage with cards like Fall of the Jedi and Dark Precognition.

On the subject of Heart of the Empire:

The LS have very few OBJECTIVE damage units, and rely on unopposed damage from multiple chuds to become effective. Sure, The Heart of the Empire wins you the game it is destroyed, however, from my play experience it is much harder to destroy a single Heart of the Empire than attacking multiple objectives in a turn. Not only do you get less unopposed damage, you can get blown out by the Coruscant Defense Fleet soaking up the damage, as well as have your opponent defend with most or all of his units at the objective. Attacking multiple objectives in a turn adds to the complexity and strategic decisions of the board state and makes the opponent think a little more when it comes to which units to defend which objective. 

I know when I am playing as the Sith, I have no problem taking a Heart of the Empire as one of my starting objectives, because I know the route to my own victory will be even easier. 

HotE is good in my decks too because of the resources able to play anything to protect it. Guards, Defense Fleet, Vader and Emperor can all either kill things before damage gets through or tact them up. I run two in my Sith deck and it doesn't get blown up.