I use Fedora 20 on a 2011 MBP and like it. Battery life is the same as on OS X. All the drivers seem to work, though I haven't bothered to test them all. Wireless works perfectly after following the instructions found here:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43
As far as UI is concerned, you usually have a wide variey of choices regardless of distro, and even if you don't like the one you installed, changing it is not a big deal. KDE provides the most functionality out of the box, but uses a lot of resources IMHO. I generally prefer Openbox because I'm a hopeless minimalist, but I do use KDE from time to time and find it useful and aesthetically pleasing.
I have not used any of the following distros on Apple computers, but here's my experience with them anyway
Linux Mint: Very user friendly and MATE is a great interface for Linux beginners. You get the huge software support of Debian without the bloat of Ubuntu. Mint is fast and you can find lots of software for it. It supported all the hardware I have used it with out of the box with no configuration required. My custom desktop currently runs Mint.
Ubuntu: This used to be the one I recommended to beginners because most stuff worked out of the box, but it got bloated and unstable in 12.04. The last version I used was 13.10 and it was not good. Still, it has tremendous software support since it's Debian based and a huge and helpful community. Lubuntu is a lighter weight version that uses LXDE for the desktop and seemed to run much smoother when I gave it a shot.
Arch Linux: This is by far my favorite and I had it on my Asus laptop for over a year. It's not for the faint of heart though. The best thing about Arch is its rolling release cycle that ensures you always have up to date software. It's also generally faster, more stable, and more secure than many other distros because you only install what you need and nothing else. It supported the hardware on my Asus and a custom desktop perfectly. Battery life on the Asus was better than on Windows 8. I'm considering installing this on my MBP.