Heya,
My view may seem really limited to some, but I look at it like this:
Want physical damage? Wolf.
Want elemental damage or Summons? Bear.
My reasoning is, the Bear doesn't have attack skills which nail multiple enemies at once, the way a Wolf does. The added damage/def from Bear isn't that fantastic when you look at your attack skill options. Maul is the only real `attack' skill that is for the bear only, and the damage is so-so compared to Fury. The Stun is inconsequential in my mind due to having a 1 point Shockwave that goes beyond Maul's stun any day of the week in terms of utility. Fireclaw is an excellent way to get damage without going physical, so a bear works fine for that. Hunger is also a nice skill for a bear if you look at the Kodiac setups. Also, Amageddon is an option if you wanted a Wereform/Elemental hybrid. The bear gives you more base life to work on.
The wolf on the other hand has powerful melee skills for physical damage. Fury has really high output and hits lots of enemies and is really fast. It's super zeal. 10k fast wrecking is very easy to achieve on a Wolf. The attack speed & AR will be higher on the wolf as well, so you will deliver the pain.
So when it comes down to it, look at your gear available, and look at what kind of melee character you want, or if you just want something other than melee, like a Summoner or elementalist. For example, I have two werebears. One is a summoner that uses Shockwave to stun while the summons eat things. The other shifts into bear and shockwaves and uses Hunger while letting a near max synergy Armageddon fall around him. I personally don't like Maul werebears due to it's single-hit nature and how it requires a lot of points and high damage weapon to really do much with.
If you're limited on gear, Fireclaw works well on either a Wolf or Bear. Fury works well with very mediocre gear. My fury wolf used the Steeldriver for a long time, which you can buy for 1 pgem easily, then finally built up to using a better weapon, like an eDeath decapitator (kind of pricey unless you have plenty of wealth). Then again, there's the Tombreaver. If you have gear, a Fury wolf can be nasty good for very little resource required. A bear can be the same, but he will have less physical output compared to a Wolf overall.
Anyhow, think about how you want to deliver damage, how you want to play, and look at what you can afford. Or if you're untwinked, think about that too in terms of progression.
Cheers, :sunny:
Werebears are definately sexier, werewolfs are passe. 
