I read about this project a few weeks back and it peaked my interest. I had considered picking some up just to try to turn a profit. Right now they are trading for about .18 a pop.
You are right about this being direct competition for nxt. Crypto news did a nice write up on them a week or so ago.

looks like this will be a direct competition to ripple or nxt more than bitshares. 

what do you guys think of the project?

Interesting things happening at Viacoin.



They forked Counterparty and Counterwallet, and are called Clearinghouse and Clearwallet. The project serves as a decentralized currency and asset exchange which relies on the Viacoin blockchain.

Peter todd, a former bitcoin developer, serves as chief scientist of the project.

Videos and demos of the protocol and clearwallet can be seen here: http://blog.viacoin.org