Unreal Engine is somewhat harder to use, but it's graphics engine is a bit closer to the cutting edge - it's the go-to engine for AAA devs these days. Unity's main user base (for people who use it to make games - some use it for academic ends, or for tech demos) tends to be the indie game scene.
They do the same job, but differ in the technical aspects and ease-of-use, and business model (though both are aiming to lower the barriers to making games), and they tend to cater to different segments of the market.
I am pretty dedicated to releasing for SteamOS as a main target platform, and have been trying to untether from windows. I have a few friends are love unity and want me to join projects but my main complaint has always been that there was no linux editor. Looks like I will have to test out the this unity test build.