The long-awaited new version of "3D Coat", now sporting an impressive "voxel sculpting"-toolset,
among many many other nice features, has just been released

You'll find much more info here

Belated PS: the current pricing ($200 for the full professional version, $140 for the educational version & $60/$80 for the upgrade (depending on your original date of purchase) are only valid until the 15. of July. And after that they probably won't decrease...

Has anyone tried this new version, and if so, how does it compare to applications like Mudbox and ZBrush?

I haven't tried all the "shiny" new features yet, but I guess it will be hard to do a good comparison of 3D-Coat with applications like Mudbox and ZBrush. I used version 2 primarily as a 3D-texture/paint-program, as I couldn't afford Maxon's Bodypaint.
What I am trying to say is this: there will be many similarities, but in the end 3D-Coat has it's own way of doing things.
I would recommend downloading the demo-version to find out for yourself
where it's strenghts and weaknesses within the context of your own workflow lie...

As a user of both , I will say that Zbrush concerning the way you brush still work best for me , very natural and smooth , but I start to play with voxel and 3Dcoat sculpt tool and you really need to try it , really some great tools , like the copy tool or clothing tool..

I think there are not soft to oppose as people do with mudbox/zbrush, but 3d coat can be a really good complement in the pipeline.
3dcoat UI will make traditional modeler more happy than the Zbrush one I guess

For me as I am doing a lot of very low polygon assets model , for Handheld plateform or such , 3Dcoat has become really one of the pillars of my texturing process, a almost dont go on photoshop anymore , you get immediate feedback on what your texture look on the low poly in real time, this is really handy and quick

anyway I guess the best way is see for yourself if it can have a place on your workflow

64Bit CUDA Version won't start