There are a few alternatives.
NewsBlur,
NetVibes and
The Old Reader, which is a copy of the old style of Google Reader, back when it had social components.
Naturally, though, the Google Reader news has caused all of these services to be crushed by traffic as people migrate away, making them kind of laggy.
NewsBlur has responded by disabling free accounts, though the premium is $1 a month. Haven't tried it yet because of the signup, but it sort of has a demo mode that didn't work when I tried it. Looks promising though. May be in unknown state of up or down.
NetVibes seems to mostly be trying to be a iGoogle replacement, which may or may not work out depending on how much you want a Dashboard replacement. Initial impressions are that it kind of sucks. Also laggy because of people.
Haven't tried Old Reader, but will try and dive in today.