I used Unreal free, before going to try Unity free… I stuck with Unity… why?.. C#
While it’s not just C# its the component system, but using C# is so much nicer and easier, the sheer amount content/training and resources for it is also pretty large, while third party api frameoworks are harder to use because of the mono C# 3.0 only, it won’t be long now before I’ll finally be able to use a few C#4.5+ api’s in Unity.
Unreal while I like so much of the tooling they provide in editor and following what they are adding in the engine, its way better than Unity (literately everything requires wallet rape down at the asset store to get some decent tools) Unreal’s flaw for me though (aside from the GUI not being as extendible as easier as Unity) is that I just hate blueprints for code/logic stuff, much easier when its in code, but I also have a disliking of C++. Unreal to me is a really nice engine/editor if you’ve got even just a small team to work with, where perhaps one guy really likes C++ and is your coding guy, so I don’t have to touch it apart from making minor tweaks and changes and focusing the creative stuff while avoiding blueprints as much as possible.
While I wish C# support was directly supported by Epic, I think its pretty clear they have no intention of making it a core thing they support in engine.
Anyway looks like Crytek have the right idea with supporting C# and their new schymatic system that comes pretty close to the component like workflow Unity has. So maybe I will eventually have a decent alternative to Unity in the future, but they got other tooling problems that need seeing to. In the end I stay with Unity and besides I need to finish a game instead of looking at engines.
Having said all that, if Unreal ever want to add a really good Voxel terrain engine and move away from only static terrain ****, like I dunno… https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/terrainengine-voxel-terrain-smooth-cubic-2d-hexagonal-infinite-procedural-terrain.174595/page-13) It would indeed be very enticing as building a game around such a big feature like that without such a big bank breaking license cost, which if supported by the engine directly will likely get community support/addons around it alot easier aswel) I think any game engine with 1 or 2 killer features for developers to build a game around and with, can be enough for them to overlook and workaround the other lackluster areas. Strangely enough terrain engine guy is porting that voxel terrain engine to Cryengine aswel now. Only mention because Unreal doesn’t really have any decent voxel engines, and while there are a few C++ open source ones, there are way more done in C# that can be used and already implemented into Unity, which makes it alot easier for an indie to use and build on top of.