The character was very well received. In 2008, The Age ranked Alma as the 34th greatest Xbox character of all time for being "a genuinely memorable and haunting character from a horror game", adding that "it’s really thanks to her and her alone" that Project Origin has been "one of our most anticipated games."[9] That same year, GameDaily ranked her as seventh on the list of most horrific video game bosses,[10] while PC Games Hardware listed her as one of the 112 most important female characters in games.[11] In 2010, Alma was one of the 64 characters chosen by GameSpot for the poll "All-Time Greatest Game Villain", but lost in the first round to the Joker.[12] In 2011, UGO.com ranked her as 9th on the list of the scariest characters in video games[13] and 7th on the list of "the absolute greatest" psychic characters in video game history,[14] while PlayStation Official Magazine listed her among the "PlayStation’s meanest mothers".[15] That same year, IGN ranked the "terrifying" Alma as the 73rd top video game villain, praising the developers' "wonderful job of crafting all sorts of horrific effects using low-tech solutions" and adding: "no matter how similar Alma might seem to Samara and other horror characters, any gamer worth their weight in blood will tell you that she's a villain in a league all on her own."[5] In 2011, Complex ranked her as 15th on the list of "most diabolical video game she-villains",[16] and in 2012, they ranked her as the 7th most evil woman in video games,[17] as well as the 50th "coolest" video game villain.[18] That same year, FHM included her on their list of ten scariest game characters ever.[19] GamesRadar too praised Alma's role as an antagonist, putting her in their 2013 list of the best villains in video game history at number 18.[20] That same year, Liz Lanier of Game Informer included Alma among the top ten female villains in video games, stating that "each one of Alma's three forms has more disturbing implications than the last. Whether she looks like Sadako as a child, or appears in her emaciated state as a woman, it doesn't bode well for the player. Even her more attractive form is terrifying considering she only uses it as a lure."[21] In 2014, Lisa Foiles of The Escapist ranked the "creepy, scary, horryfying, terryfying, awful little" Alma as number one creepiest child in video games