Virtua Fighter technically is a deeper fighting game when compared to Tekken 5, however, deeper fighting game doesn't always neccessarily mean "better" fighting game. Although VF may hold the deepest fighting game award, I feel that Tekken 5 is a far more fun fighting game to play, and it has it's share of depth, for example, if you look at many of the elite Tekken Players, and asking them, knowing the frame data is a key to victory, for example doing the EWGF with say, Devil Jin gives you a +5 frame advantage on block, where as doing the WGF will put you at a -10 or 11 frame disadvantage on block...meaning it can be punished, things like this important, and knowing what moves can counter attack the opponent when blocked and what can't be countered upon block.
However, the tier listings for both games, although they carry them, the comparison of the top tiers to lower tiers in Tekken 5 is more visible, or the win and lose ratio is larger when compared to VF which is more balanced. In the end though, it really comes down to just how fun the game, that will usually contradict how fun it is to play. I personally prefer Tekken5 over VF because the characters are far more appealing ( The Mishima's, Julia Chang, Steve Fox, Hwoarang etc.) and the hits in Tekken 5 are more romantically real, meaning that it has an unrealization to it more than that of VF, because Tekken's hits are more in your face while VF has a more realistic feel to it.
I like Tekken 5 more than VF4, but honestly, I like SFIII 3rd Strike and MvC2 over T5 and VF4.
