The newest daily builds of the Gnome Shell powered Ubuntu 13.04 distribution have been released; this distribution is the newest incarnation of the Ubuntu distribution that sports the latest Gnome Shell interface. Gnome Shell also has built a new Gnome fallback mode that is said to be more like Gnome 2.32.2. Although from what I have seen; it still looks like the older Gnome fallback mode. The Linux Mint MATE desktop provides a more realistic emulation of the old Gnome desktop anyway; being a fork of the old Gnome code. It is nice and fast as well as pretty with the right themes installed. I have downloaded the Ubuntu 13.04 Gnome build and I will see what I think of this Ubuntu respin. Download the images from the links below.
Raring ringtail x86_64 ISO: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/daily-live/current/raring-desktop-amd64.is.
Raring ringtail x86_32 ISO: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/daily-live/current/raring-desktop-i386.iso.
These ISO images require a DVD disc for burning; or a 1GiB thumb drive to write the image to. But give this a try and see what you think of it. Since Ubuntu is using the Unity desktop which sometimes is not the most stable desktop out there; I have had it crash on me at a critical moment; I would recommend trying Gnome Shell or MATE instead.