We remodeled our kitchen about a year ago. After spending countless hours in numerous stone showrooms, my wife found exactly what she was looking for --> Taj Mahal Extra Quartzite. You can read more and see pics at: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5525926/looking-for-granite-which-is-modern-and-warm.
I can't answer your question about how "desirable" it is compared to granite. But, I can tell you that we are extremely happy with our counters. We love the way they look -- they have 3-dimensional depth to them that most granite doesn't,. They seem durable, but we never place hot pans on our counters. We do cook with Indian spices frequently and the spices wipe off the counters easily.
Here are a few more recent pictures of our counters (after backplash was installed). Apologies for these less than ideal shots, but I'm not at home now so I just grabbed some pics from my phone.
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Newport
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