I think general audiences would have jumped on it, but the end results would have been "what is this?" from them too. Established story being reset could be hard for general audiences to understand. But the actual concepts of the film would have been so whacky and weird, way away from Alien, that I think it really would have turned people off.
Established Xenomorph biology and lifecycles were changed. How the Xenos came to exist and everything was tackled, along with Ripley taking them out. Too big of ideas that didn't seem thought through. The way that played out was weird, disrespectful and just bad. It wasn't even fun Kenner vibes, it would have just been a slap in the face.
There is one thing I wish, wish, WISH I could just say to confirm this all. When I found out it got a giant "What the actual f**k? No thank you. Nope." when I was given the plot of the film. Seriously happy we didn't get it. Kind of how we've come to find out more on the AvP anime, the more a lot of us feel like we might have been lucky they weren't released. Concept sounds great on paper, just like Blomkamp directing sounded great. But ultimately we may be glad we didn't get them in the long run.